I am thinking that it was a happy way to live.
--Agatha Christie, Come, Tell Me How You Live

John Mallowan

Donald Wiseman, Agatha Christie, Max Mallowan and Neville Chittick (l-r) at Nimrud, 1950.

The result was Come, Tell Me How You Live, an autobiographical account of their time in Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak. Agatha vividly and humorously recalls the work of the digs, the personalities involved and the details of daily life, in particular her battles with the cook. She also describes her own contribution to the digs, her role as photographer, recorder of finds, cleaner and repairer of pottery.

Agatha wrote the book as a present for Max. It recalls a time when people still changed for dinner, even on remote archaeological expeditions, a time when there were no proper roads, plumbing, telephones or wireless, where endurance was a part of life. At Agatha's request the book was published under the name of Agatha Christie Mallowan.

1949-1958 Nimrud, after the war

I had my own favourite tools ... an orange stick, possibly a very fine knitting needle ... and a jar of cosmetic face cream ... for gently coaxing the dirt out of the crevices without harming the friable ivory...

Oh what a beautiful spot it was... The Tigris was just a mile away, and on the great mound of the Acropolis, big stone Assyrian heads poked out of the soil. In one place there was the enormous wing of a great genie.
--Agatha Christie, An Autibiography

	Nimrud
	All that remains today of the great Assyrian city of Nimrud is a string of mountains stretching along the east bank of the River Tigris in northern Iraq. Occupied from prehistoric times, it reached its real prominence in the reign of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) who made Nimrud the capital of the Assyrian empire, which was soon to stretch from Western Iran to the Mediterranean Sea. The first proper excavations at Nimrud were made by the great archaeologist and traveller Sir Henry Layard, who worked there between 1845 and 1851. Layard discovered the royal palaces ornamented with the famous stone reliefs displayed in The British Museum, among other museums. After him a number of other archaeologists worked there, including Hormuzd Rassam, W.K. Loftus and George Smith, but from 1879 onwards the site was effectively abandoned.

In 1947 Max's colleagues decided to create a new Chair of Western Asiatic Archaeology and asked Max to be its first occupant. Agatha agreed to fund the new Chair. Max was then 43, and his varied experience in the field qualified him to become a professor.

Soon afterwards the Mallowans travelled out to Baghdad and began looking at possible sites. Their search crystallised with the site of Nimrud, capital of the neo-Assyrian empire.

Palaces of kings

It is one of the three important cities of Assyria. It ought to be dug... It has every chance of being one of the great sites, one of the historic digs which will add to the world's knowledge.
--Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

Mallowan thought otherwise. He had a romantic vision of Nimrud from his days at Nineveh with Campbell Thompson, when he had taken Agatha to visit the site and they had seen a winged bull emerging from the soil. He had always wanted to dig there.

Work resumes

I shall never have a professional attitude or remember the exact dates of the Assyrian kings, but I do take an enormous interest in the personal aspects of what archaeology reveals.
--Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

From Baghdad Max set out for his first expedition to Nimrud. At first the team's accommodation was a mud-brick farm surrounding a vast courtyard filled with dung. It was not until the following season that they were able to build their own expedition house with useful work rooms, common rooms and a kitchen. The expedition team at Nimrud always slept in tents. Agatha had her own private mud-brick room where she could write undisturbed, labelled in cuneiform, 'Agatha's House.'

Agatha spent much of her time working on and photographing the objects. The most important of these were decorative ivory panels, some of which had been lying at the bottom of wells for more than 2,500 years. Agatha became skilled in their restoration. She devised a careful drying-out process so that the ivories would not crack, and cleaned them meticulously using her precious face cream.

A decade of discovery

Here was once Calah, that great City. Then Calah slept... Here came Layard to disturb its peace. And again Calah-Nimrud slept... Here came Max Mallowan and his wife. Now again Calah sleeps... Who shall disturb it next?
--Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

The British Museum

Silver beaker, Phoenician, 8th-7th century BCE. Found at Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), northern Iraq. Each campaigning season the Assyrian army gathered at the palace and military complex at Nimrud, known today as Fort Shalmaneser. Mallowan and his team discovered large quantities of ash and burnt debris there, resulting from the destruction of Nimrud at the end of the seventh century BCE. They found several small objects and a considerable quantity of pottery among the remains in the living quarters. These are typical of the small personal possessions lost by their owners before the palace was finally abandoned. Fortunately two trophies, this beautiful silver beaker and a silver bowl decorated with lion's heads (now in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad) were hidden in a small pit beneath the floor, and escaped looters. The weight of the soil has, however, crushed the beaker.

Work began on the eastern section of the mound in the North West Palace, originally discovered by Layard. Max's most important finds were ivories discovered buried in sludge at the bottom of several wells in this palace. They had been thrown there at the time of the city's destruction by the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BCE.

In 1957, while walking round the site, Max noticed some high-lying ground with undulating outlines that appeared to contain massive walls. In a gateway they found a brick inscribed with the name of Shalmaneser III. The entire workforce was moved to the area and ultimately revealed the ground plan of an armoury covering more than 6 hectares. From its many rooms came more beautiful ivories. Fort Shalmaneser was the crown on a decade of achievement at Nimrud.

They Came to Baghdad

Unexpectedly, she found the life quite enchanting... Helping with camera work. Piecing together and sticking up pottery. Watching the men at work, appreciating the skill and delicacy of the pick men-- enjoying the songs and laughter of the little boys who ran to empty their baskets of earth on the dump.
--Agatha Christie, They Came to Baghdad, (1951)

Two of the characters, Rupert Crofton Lee and Henry Carmichael, were based on friends and colleagues of Max and Agatha. Crofton Lee was inspired by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the excavator of Mohenjo Daro, an archaeological site in modern Pakistan. Carmichael was based on Robin Macartney, an architect who had accompanied Max and Agatha on many excavations and had designed the covers of some of Agatha's early books. They Came to Baghdad features an engagingly absent-minded archaeologist and reveals through the heroine, Victoria Jones, Agatha's own experiences of life on a dig. Despite an unlikely plot the book enjoyed record sales.

Agatha the photographer
Agatha Christie was a skilled photographer. She recounts with some amusement her attendance at a photographic course, which led to her taking 'artistic' shots of pottery and other finds made on Max's digs. He responded by saying that her interesting shadows and arrangements were distractions, and insisted on her including a symbol of measurement. She was very interested in new technology, and the moving films she made show great progress in technique. She liked to mix archaeological scenes on the excavations with shots of the countryside, including flowers and animals, particularly dogs. She also liked photographing local people ploughing, sowing and making bread, and she loved the smiling faces of children. Her large collection of black and white photographs of the excavations and the countryside are a valuable and important resource for research today.

1958 onwards: memories and legacies

Don't let anyone ever say to you that nothing exciting ever happens to you when you are old.
--Agatha Christie, in a letter to her literary agent, Edmund Cork, 1961

Back in England Max and Agatha were far from idle, and honours were heaped upon them both. In 1961 UNESCO announced that Agatha was the world's best-selling author writing in English. Apart from her crime-writing, Agatha was also writing her own biography, determined to cut the ground from under the feet of others who wanted to write it for her. In 1971 she was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire. The distinction gave her great pleasure as she had a modest opinion of her own talents. She appeared as a waxwork at Madame Tussaud's. In 1974 she attended the royal première of Murder on the Orient Express. It was to be almost her last public outing.

Max began to write his memoirs, which he completed just as Agatha died on 12 January 1976.

Services to history

Nothing could be further apart than our work. I am a lowbrow and he a highbrow, yet we complement each other.
--Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

In October 1962 Max resigned from his chair of Western Asiatic Archaeology and took up a fellowship of All Souls College, Oxford. There he settled down to write his definitive report on his time at Nimrud. Its publication in 1966 was followed by a successful lecture tour of the United States. Max was knighted in June 1968 for his services to archaeology. In 1973 he became a Trustee of the British Museum, which he described as his 'intellectual and spiritual gymnasium'.

In September 1977 Max married his old friend Barbara Parker, who had been the epigraphist at Nimrud. He died the following year, on 19 August 1978.

Nimrud and its remains

I dedicate this book to my wife, Agatha Christie Mallowan, who shared with me in the joys and trials of excavating Nimrud and lightened our labours through her imagination, her skill, and her kindness.
--Max Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains

In 1977 Max's autobiography Mallowan's Memoirs was published. It gives a selective account of his childhood, education, marriage, and career, and is full of anecdote and humorous encounter. He describes in the postscript how Agatha died, peacefully and gently, leaving him with a feeling of emptiness after 45 years of a loving and merry companionship, during which he had lived in harmony beside an imaginative and creative mind. Agatha had inspired his life with her own zest for living and with the happiness she radiated, in both her person and her books.

One cannot complain of having no clues... There are clues here in abundance.
--Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express