Saturday, March 12, 2011

Agatha Christie's Secret Life As An Archaeologist

London, England (CNN) -- She is one of the best-known crime writers of all time but few know the extent of Agatha Christie's archaeological pedigree.

Married in 1930 to eminent archaeologist Max Mallowan, Christie spent two decades living on excavation sites in the Middle East, writing her crime novels and helping out with her husband's work.

(The above British Museum photo shows Christie's husband Max Mallowan, Christie and Leonard Woolley at the Biblical ruins at Ur in 1931).

Travel by boat and on the Orient Express to far-flung places such as Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad inspired some of Christie's best-known works of detective fiction, including "Murder on the Orient Express," "Death on the Nile," and "Murder in Mesopotamia."

Now, 3,000-year-old ivory artifacts recovered by Mallowan between 1949 and 1963 from the ancient city of Nimrud, in what is now Iraq, and likely cleaned by his famous wife using cotton wool buds and face cream, go on display Monday at the British Museum in London.

You can read the rest of the CNN.com piece via the below link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/03/12/uk.christie.writer.archaeology/#

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