Queen of the Mountain

Infobox_Film
name = Queen of the Mountain


caption =
director = Martha Goell Lubell
producer = Martha Goell Lubell
writer = Sharon Mulally Carol Rosenbaum
music = Sumi Tonooka
cinematography = Peter Brownscombe
editing = Sharon Mulally
distribution = Women Make Movies
runtime = 56 min.
country = USA
language = English
website = www
amg_id =
imdb_id =

"Queen of the Mountain" is a 2005 documentary about Theresa Goell, a middle-aged Jewish mother from Brooklyn who, in 1947, left her husband and son to dig beneath the Sanctuary of Nemrud Dagh. Theresa was fascinated by this shrine to King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene, which had been neglected by previous archaeologists.

"Queen of the Mountain" tells her story through archival footage, family photographs, oral histories, commentary from Theresa's friends and her own letters. The "New York Times" said it offered a "strong, rich narrative with visuals to match."

ummary

Theresa’s career as an archaeologist was full of obstacles. She a woman working in a man’s field, and as a young adult she was also diagnosed with otosclerosis, which meant she would slowly go stone deaf. According to the documentary, it was Theresa’s “bull dog tenacity” that drove her to the Middle East in hopes of discovering buried treasures and ancient secrets.

“People usually walk around a waterfall—I would walk down a waterfall. People usually walk over a bridge—I walked under a bridge,” says Theresa, describing her rambunctious childhood.

Theresa’s father expected his daughter to marry and live a respectable life as a wife and mother. He arranged a marriage for her that she complied with, but soon after, in 1926, while studying at Cambridge, her interest in classical architecture blossomed into a love of archeology. Unhappily married, she divorced her husband, left her son and moved to Jerusalem to study ancient ruins. The documentary shares anecdotes that shed light on what kind of a woman Theresa was. During World War II, she worked as a draftsman in the Brooklyn naval yard. Her presence was enough to make heads turn. “I was the only woman among 1,200 men,” she says. There was no toilet system for woman so she had to make the long walk across the site to use the Red Cross station. Frustrated, but with a sense of humor, Theresa says, “they thought I was causing a labor problem because every time I walked to the Red Cross station every one of the 1,200 men stopped to whistle at me.”

It was before the war that Theresa learned about Nemrud Dagh, but it wasn’t until 1947 that she was able to travel to the site. With no maps, she set out with only a child to carry her duffel bag. Located in the Kurdish section of Turkey, the difficulty of the terrain and obscurity of the location also prevented previous archaeological exploration. King Antiochus’s shrine also slipped through the cracks of interest because it blended classical and oriental traditions. As a result, Classicalists thought it was too oriental and Orientalists thought it too classical.

Theresa proved revolutionary in a number of ways. She recognized the significance of ancient ruins that had been neglected, she insisted her team use modern technological advances; and, perhaps most importantly, she helped pave the way for future female archaeologists.

Reception

The New York Times wrote, quote|Tess Goell was the kind of American heroine that seemed to exist only in 1930s movies, played by
Katharine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell. They were women bravely striding into what was largelybelieved to be a man's world — flying planes, battling city hall, working in formerly all-male offices ornewsrooms. Goell strode into archaeology, a divorced, hearing-impaired Jewish woman amid Muslimsin southern Turkey. Citation
last =Gates
first =Anita
title = Examining the Life of Tess Goell, a Pioneering Archaeologist
newspaper = New York Times
year = 2006
date = March 25
url = http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/press/Queen_NYT.pdf]

Notes

References

*cite web
title = Queen of the Mountain
publisher = Women Making Movies
date =2005
url =http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c675.shtml
accessdate = July 23

*Citation
last =Gates
first =Anita
title = Examining the Life of Tess Goell, a Pioneering Archaeologist
newspaper = New York Times
year = 2006
date = March 25
url = http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/press/Queen_NYT.pdf

ee also

*"Jews of Iran"
*"Pola's March"
*"Marion's Triumph"
*"My Yiddish Momme McCoy"

External links

* [http://tjctv.com/movies/queen-of-the-mountain/ "The Jewish Channel" reviews "Queen of the Mountain"]
* [http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/press/Queen_NYT.pdf New York Times Review]
* [http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c675.shtml Queen of the Mountain's official Website]
* [http://www.learningsites.com/NemrudDagi/nemdagi-2.htm More on Nemrud Dagh]
* [http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c675.shtml Queen of the Mountain] at the [http://www.wmm.com Women Make Movies Website]
* [http://www.jwa.org/archive/jsp/perInfo.jsp?personID=694 More on Theresa Goell]
* [http://www.pointsfromturkey.com/mount_nemrut.html Mount Nemrut]
* [http://www.institutkurde.org/kurdorama/nemrud/nemrud.php Les sculptures du Nemrud Dagh] fr
* [http://www.anatolia.luwo.be/Nemrot.htm Mount Nemrud Guide and Photo Album]
* [http://www.mountnemrut.info Mount Nemrut]