tour 3 of 26
Agatha Christie and archaeology
Dagger and sheath
'The lure of the past came up to grab
me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through
the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects
from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist
myself.'
A. Christie,
An Autobiography
(London, 1981), p.
389
Agatha's first
marriage, to Archibald Christie, ended in divorce in 1928. In the
autumn of that year she booked a ticket on the Orient Express. From
Baghdad she travelled on to Ur, to Leonard Woolley's
excavations, widely published in England at that time. Visitors to
Woolley's dig were discouraged, but Agatha was warmly
received, the formidable Katharine Woolley being an admirer of her
books. Agatha was entranced by the beauty of the desert and the
life of the camp and took up Katharine's invitation to
return early in
1930.
Katharine instructed
Max Mallowan, one of Woolley's team, who had been absent
the year before, to escort Agatha on a tour of local sights on the
way back to Baghdad, and, when she had to return home urgently to
her daughter Rosalind, who was ill, Max travelled with her to
England. They kept in touch, Max came to stay in Devon, and in May
1930, he asked Agatha to marry him. After a month, she said
yes.