tour 25 of 26
Agatha Christie and archaeology
Ivory head of a lion
In their first season at Nimrud, the small team
of four people lived in a mud-brick house belonging to the local
sheikh. After that a dig-house was built. It still stands, now used
by the Iraq Department of Antiquities. It originally had four
rooms, one of which was a small darkroom. When in due course, the
dig-house was extended, Mallowan tells us that a room was added for
Agatha 'where for a part of the morning she sat and wrote
her novels quickly and straight on to the typewriter. More than
half a dozen of them were written in this way, season after
season.' M. Mallowan,
Mallowan's
Memoirs (London, 1977), p.
290
This ivory
lion's head probably comes from a piece of furniture. The
back is flat with a mortice for attachment, possibly to the front
of a throne or corner of a table. It was found at Fort Shalmaneser,
which was mainly excavated in the years 1958-63, when Max and
Agatha had left and the field directorship had been handed over to
David Oates, but the decision to excavate had already been taken in
1957.