The life of Max Mallowan: Archaeology and Agatha Christie

This is the first full-length biography of Sir Max Mallowan (1904-78), archaeologist and husband of Agatha Christie. Trained by the great Leonard Woolley at the site of the royal cemetery at Ur in the mid 1920s, Max Mallowan then excavated at previously untried sites in north-eastern Syria. After the Second World War, he returned to Iraq to supervise over a period of 12 years the excavation of the important city of Nimrud. Mallowan was always accompanied by his wife Agatha Christie, whose work on her current book was frequently interrupted by the demands of her role as site photographer, registrar of finds and repairer of pottery, as well as medical adviser and cook. She was fascinated by his work, and theirs was a supremely happy marriage. Like Hercule Poirot, her world-famous detective, Mallowan was a master of the false trail and the misleading clue. For both of them, the art was to discover the hidden truth.