Gertrude Bell is a British archaeologist, photographer, writer, traveller and political officer. She travelled to many places in the World but the Anatolian region impressed her very much. So, she travelled and investigated archaeological places and created a great photo archive by taking thousands of pictures in the early 1900s. This archive is very precious in many ways. Probably, most of these pictures are some of the first pictures which were taken in Anatolia. All of the archive was donated to Newcastle University by the Bell family. The whole archive can be seen on gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk.
In this project, I will visit the places where Gertrude Bell went and re-take the photos which she took.
Many thanks to Newcastle University School of History, Classics and Archaeology, especially Dr.Mark Jackson and Gianluca Foschi for giving me support and permission to realise this project.
On this day, I planned to go to the castle. We went there in the early morning hours. While we were on the road, the sky was mostly clear but when we climbed to the castle, we found ourselves inside the clouds rising towards us.
This castle is located in the southwest skirt of Mount Hasan, near Kecikalesi village, on a very dominant hill. In one aspect, endless fields of Central Anatolia and in another aspect Mount Hasan rises.
Bell came there with her servants Fattuh and Aziz.
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As I read from Bell's diaries, she visited there on 5-7 July 1907. Even though I didn't plan the date of this trip, I realised that Bell and I visited there on almost the same days of the year, but 114 years apart.
Another place that I planned to visit today is Anatepesi Church. This church is located in the northern skirt of Mount Hasan, which Bell found familiar to Mount Fuji in Japan.
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