Mabel Bent


Mabel Virginia Anna Bent , was an Anglo-Irish explorer, excavator, writer and photographer. With her husband, J. Theodore Bent, she spent two decades travelling, collecting and researching in remote regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Africa, and Arabia.

Early life

Hall-Dare was born on 28 January 1847. Her birthplace was her grandfather's estate, Beauparc, on the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. Via her mother, Frances Anna Catherine Lambart, she descends from Oliver Lambart, 1st Lord Lambart, Baron of Cavan, English MP for Southampton, Governor of Connaught, Irish Privy Counsellor. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Shortly after her birth the Hall-Dares moved to Temple House, County Sligo, before re-locating in the early 1860s to County Wexford, acquiring the property that was later to become Newtownbarry House, in Newtownbarry. While young, Hall-Dare suffered several bereavements, losing both her parents and her two brothers.
Hall-Dare and her sisters received education at home with private governesses and tutors.
Distant cousins, and having met in Norway, Hall-Dare married J. Theodore Bent on 2 August 1877 in the church of Staplestown, County Carlow, not far from Mabel's Irish home. There was wealth on both sides, and the Bents set up home first at 43 Great Cumberland Place, near Marble Arch, in London, later moving closer to the Arch at number 13; Mabel remained in that same rented townhouse for 30 years after Theodore's death in 1897, until her own death in 1929.

Bent's Journeys 1877–1897

Mabel and Theodore Bent’s first journeys took them to Italy at the end of the 1870s, Theodore, who history at Oxford University, being interested in Garibaldi and Italian unification. From there, Theodore decided to pursue a career as a historian and amateur archaeologist. For the next twenty-seven years, the couple would embark on annual travels across the Mediterranean, Africa, and Arabia. 
The Bents chose to spend the winter and spring months of every year traveling, using summers and autumns to write up their findings and prepare for their next campaigns. Their main geographical fields of interest can be roughly grouped into three primary areas: Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean ; Africa ; and Southern Arabia.
Mabel documented her travels with a series of diaries or ‘Chronicles’. These contained her travel notes, findings, and observations. Her husband used her notebooks as aides memoires in his own writings. Her collection of notebooks is now in the archives of the Hellenic and Roman Library, Senate House, London. Several of her letters home from Africa and Arabia are held in the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Starting in 1885, Bent travelled with her photographic equipment and, from then on, became expedition photographer. She often travelled with a large quantity of equipment, including two to three cameras, chemicals, glass plates, film, and a portable darkroom. Few of her original photographs have survived, but many were used to produce the illustrations that feature in her husband's books and articles, and the lantern slides that enhanced his lectures at the Royal Geographical Society in London and elsewhere.

The Greek and Eastern Mediterranean Travels

Source:
  • 1882-1883: The Greek Mainland
  • 1883-1884: The Cyclades
  • 1885: The Greek Dodecanese
  • 1886: Istanbul and along the Turkish Coast
  • 1887: Thásos and Northern Aegean
  • 1888: Asia Minor Littoral

    Greek Mainland

In the Winter of 1882-1883, the Bents explored the archeological sites of Tiryans, Mycenae, and Delphi. On their way home, they stopped at the Cycladic islands of Tinos and Amorgos to witness the Easter celebrations, leading the pair to embark on more in depth expeditions to the region in the Spring of 1884.

The Cyclades

On the Cycladic island of Antiparos in early 1884, the Bents were shown some prehistoric graves by local mining engineers, Robert and John Swan. Theodore Bent undertook amateur archaeological investigations at two sites on the island and returned to London with skeletal remnants which are now in the Natural History Museum, and many ceramic, stone and obsidian finds that now form a significant part of the British Museum's Cycladic collection; within a few months he had published the material and his career as an archaeologist/ethnographer, and in which his wife was to be central, was launched. These expeditions culminated in Theodore’s most popular work, The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks.
It was during this trip that Mabel Bent began her 'Chronicles'.

The Greek Dodecanese

In 1885, the Bents explored the islands currently known as the Greek Dodescanese. In 1885, the region belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Their main internist was Kárpathos, where the Bents acquired a Limestone statue which is housed in the British Museum. They also stopped at Rhodes, Nisyros, and Tilos, searching for antiquities, textiles, and ceramics.
It is within this chronicle that Mabel first references her role as expedition photographer, which she continued to hold throughout all the Bents’ expeditions. Mabel was particularly interested in the traditions and customs of the Dodecanese, which she captured with her photography and writings.

Istanbul and the Turkish Coast

Using a grant from the Hellenic Society, the Bents led a journey down the Turkish island of Sámos and Chíos. However, in Sámos, they encountered some problems with the local authorities, due to not having permission to dig in the island. Mabel mentioned in her diaries about the schemes the crew employed to avoid local “pirates” along the Turkish coast. The Bents were accompanied by their dragoman Manthaios Símos from the Cycladic island of Anafi. He was invited on most of their journeys until their final one in 1897.
The Bents travelled across the Northern Aegean in 1887, working their way up the Turkish coast. They stopped along Metéora, Vólos, and Thessaloníki before reaching their intended destination of Thásos. Theodore’s main discoveries centered on the remains of the Arch of Caracalla. The Bents also evacuated a number of marble statues. It was also on this island that Mabel acquired her pet tortoise, ‘Thraki’.
The marble items from Thásos were taken to an archaeological museum in Istanbul, despite the Bents’ efforts. The couple in turn spent much of the summer and autumn of 1887 trying to build support to “rescue” the artifacts from the Ottoman authorities and bring them to London. In 1888, the Director of Antiquities in Turkey, Hamdi Bey, restricted the Bents from further expedition on Turkish lands.
Despite Ottoman restrictions, in 1888, the Bents led an expedition along the Asia Minor littoral, going as far as Kastellórizo. Mabel wrote in her diary, “Everyone says it is better to dig first and let them say Kismet after, than to ask leave of the Turks and have them spying there”. The Hellenic society funded the Bents evacuations of sites in ancient Loryma, Lydae, and Myra. Thedore entitled his article on this journey, ‘A Piratical F.S.A.”.

The African Journeys

Source:
  • January 1885 - February 1885: Cairo, Egypt
  • January 1891 - March 1892: ‘Mashonaland’ on behalf of Cecil Rhodes to explore the site of Great Zimbabwe
  • January 1893- March 1893: Ethiopia
  • December 1895 - April 1896: Sudan

    Zimbabwe

In 1891, Mabel Bent accompanied Theodore on an excavation he led on the ruins of Mashonaland. The expedition was funded by the Royal Geographical Society, the British South Africa Company, and the British Association of Science. Cecil Rhodes, founder of the BSAC, chose Bent because of his prior archaeological work on the Phoenicians. Rhodes had plans to develop a British colony in Zimbabwe and evidence of the "foreign origin” of Great Zimbabwe’ would justify European colonization of the region.
Theodore supported the theories of Cecil Rhodes, claiming “that the ruins and the things in them are not in any way connected with any known African race”. Theodore originally concluded that the ruins were of Persian origin, but later changed his theory claiming that the former civilization was in fact related to the Phoenicians. Bent theorized that the builders of the ruins came from the Arabian Peninsula. He further theorized this prehistoric race was then absorbed into the Phoenician and Egyptian races.
Theodores’s resulting book, “The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland,” was one of his most popular. The book included many illustrations derived from Mabel’s photography.

Ethiopia

In January of 1893, the Bents travelled to the ancient capital of the Abyssinian empire, Aksum. Theodore sought to support his Great Zimbabwe findings by identifying archaeological similarities between the interior of Ethiopia and the ruins of Mashonaland. The expedition was funded by the British Museum, the RGS, and the British Association of Science. Theodore published their findings in The Sacred City of the Ethiopians. Many reviews praised Mabel’s photographs of the ruins, especially those of the monument of Axum.

Sudan

In December of 1885, after political instability postponed the Bents’ tour of Hadhramout. The Bents embarked on an impromptu expedition along the west coast of the Red Sea. Their boat tour led the Bents’ to set their eyes on the Sudanese interior. However, The Bents were restricted by British officials in occupied Egypt from entering the interior of Sudan due to the rise of the nationalist Mahdist Sudan. The Bents deliberately disobeyed orders and ventured inland.
The Bents’ observations of gold-mining activity in the Sudanese interior of Wadi Gabeit attracted much media attention. Theodore presented his findings to the Royal Geography Society in June of 1896, but the archeological items he collected were the leanest from any of his travels. Mabel incorporated her Chronicles on Sudan into her book, Southern Arabia in a popular chapter entitled “African Interlude, "The Eastern Soudan”.