Agatha Christie aroused a curiosity so strong for knowing our past that she even travelled in 1930 to Iraq to visit the campaign of excavations , whose director was Leonard Woolley, which was taking place in the well-known city of Ur . There she met her second husband , a British archaeologist of great relevance in the archeology of the Middle East named Max Mallowan. Christie was very amazed with the archaeological work and with the mysteries that surrounded this discipline, “the lure of the past came to me to cling. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its golden glow, through the sand. Care when lifting pots and objects from the ground fills me with a longing to be an archaeologist on my own .”
The passion of Agatha Christie together with that of her husband made them travel through Syria and Iraq in search of new archaeological desires, where she was inspired to write several of her novels such as Murder in Mesopotamia, Death on the Nile, andA date with death set in the Middle East. Agatha was dedicated to the restoration and conservation of the findings found in the excavations of her husband and the archaeological record , both the photographic and the inventory. She herself assumed the costs of her accommodation and maintenance, she was also an anonymous investor of the archaeological campaigns in order to prevent them from having to end due to lack of funds.
It should be noted that among her trips she was a visitor to the city of Palmira , currently ravaged by the self-styled Islamic State, and praised it this way:“After seven hours of heat and monotony in a lonely world, Palmyra! I think that is the charm of Palmira, her slender and creamy beauty rising fantastically out of the burning sand.” To recount the adventure that she undertook with her husband through these unique archaeological sites, she wrote a chronicle of her travels after World War II, called Come and tell me how you live . In May 2015, it was announced that said chronicle was going to be reissued and to complement with more than 50 images taken by the author herself.
Agatha Christie was the example of how archeology can complete our lives, either as a profession or as a hobby. We leave you a last appointment of this emblematic writer who, without a doubt, with a lot of humor , she defines the passion and dedication that she dedicated to our profession.
“Marry an archaeologist. The older you get, the more charming he will find you…”