The Thousand and One Churches

The Thousand and One Churches Synopsis

Written by two of the most eminent Anatolian experts of the day, this book on church history and architecture in Turkey was first published in 1909. Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939), Scottish classical scholar and archaeologist, and Gertrude Bell (1868–1926), traveller, archaeologist and diplomatist, joined forces for an expedition investigating the Hittite and Byzantine site of Bin-Bir-Kilisse in Turkey in 1907. Bell was successful in establishing the chronology of Byzantine churches, and her findings constitute the middle two parts of the book, on buildings and ecclesiastical architecture. Ramsay contributed the first and last parts, on the historical and geographical details of the churches and an account of other notable monuments in the region. Ramsay was knighted in 1906 and both scholars were honoured by the Royal Geographical Society. In 1913 Bell became one of the first women to be elected a Fellow of the Society.