Archaeological links with the Bible, £12.99
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Agatha Christie and archaeology
Stone horse's head amulet
During the first season's digging, the team rented a large mud-brick building in Amuda, which Agatha disliked from the first, since it was infested by great numbers of mice. The services of a 'highly professional cat' were enlisted and the plague abated. Robin Macartney, the team's architect, designed an expedition house of their own, based on the buildings with pointed arches common in northern Syria. Over 10,000 mud bricks were used, and when finished the house consisted of two bedrooms, a dawing office, a storeroom for antiquities, a living room, a kitchen and dark-room. The interior was cool and very comfortable.
Agatha's archaeological involvement became more intensive, professional and demanding, leaving her own career as a writer in abeyance. As well as supervising workmen and mending pottery, her main occupation was taking and developing photographs of the dig. The darkroom was not as not as comfortable as the main house: 'In it, one can neither sit nor stand! Crawling in on all fours, I develop plates, kneeling with bent head. I come out, practically asphyxiated with heat and unable to stand upright.' To avoid the worst of the heat, Agatha began work at six in the morning.