Fortunately, and perhaps not unexpectedly, Katherine did not recognize certain traits which might have been taken as applicable to herself, and took no umbrage to this book.” “Here, perhaps, Agatha touched rather near the bone,” he writes, “and for once was apprehensive about what this dramatis persona might say. In his book Mallowan’s Memoirs (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1977), Mallowan recounts that the murdered woman’s character was based on Katherine Woolley, who was known to be a difficult, albeit fascinating individual. And Christie gave every one of them a motive for murder. The novel recounts the murder of the field director’s wife on the “University of Pittstown Expedition to Iraq.” Just as the book’s setting mirrors the actual expedition, the mystery’s characters are only thinly veiled representations of its members. It seems only natural, then, that she would select an archaeological project as the backdrop of one of her stories.Ĭhristie published Murder in Mesopotamia in 1936. Accompanying him regularly on his excavations, Christie assisted with many of the tasks when she wasn’t writing her mystery novels. Christie first visited the excavation site of Ur in 1928. Woolley’s assistant, Max Mallowan, was married to none other than the “Queen of Crime,” Agatha Christie. Leonard Wooley, and Father Leon Legrain, the expedition epigrapher and curator and curator of the Babylonian section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.īut what about Woolley’s wife? In reality, this story has a twist. ![]() Linnell, Katherine Keeling (later Woolley), C. Members of the third season’s expedition, 1924-25. These dazzling grave finds represent the highest artistic achievement of the Sumerians. Even more sensational was his discovery of the Royal Tombs, dating to 2650-2550 B.C., and their contents - a wealth of objects made of gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian, and other semiprecious stones. Woolley provided new interpretations of the rise of the Sumerians, the world’s first literate civilization. ![]() The spectacular results of this project made Woolley famous and greatly enhanced the reputations of the two museums. Max Mallowan and Father Leon Ligroin, among others, assisted him. Leonard Woolley was hired to direct the work in Iraq. Having previously worked for Penn in Nubia, from 1907 to 1911, C. In 1922, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum chose Ur for a joint excavation program, which continued until 1934. It was also an important Sumerian city in southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Ur of the Chaldees, as it was called in biblical times, is considered the home of Abraham, the Old Testament patriarch. Such circumstances can be rife with ego clashes, amorous relationships, and consuming jealousies. Archaeologists living and working close together at remote sites have been known on occasion to engage in passionate feuds. The beautiful, intriguing, and temperamental wife of the field director is found murdered. ![]() The Setting is an Archaeological expedition to Ur, in Iraq, during the 1930s. Leonard Wolley, Katherine Wolley, Father Eric R. Max Mallowan (third from left), Hamoudi, C.
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