[2] She moved to Scotland in 1907 and lived for the rest of her life at Craig, a country house at Balmaclellan near Castle Douglas in Kirkcudbrightshire.
Due to the absence of an exhibition space, in 1938 Ethel Bristowe bequeathed an art gallery to the people of Castle Douglas (with several of her works).
In this work Bristowe reconstructs the ancient chronology of Mesopotamia based on the Cylinder of Nabonidus.
Bristowe controversially defended the earlier dating from the cylinder, to then argue Sargon was the Biblical Cain.
The Cain-Sargon theory is not at all popular with contemporary Assyriologists, but has received support from British Israelites and proponents of Christian Identity whose publishing houses reprinted Bristowe's work.