Max Mallowan of Ur (1925–31), which was thought to be the capital of Mesopotamian civilization. It was at the Ur site, in 1930, that he first met Agatha Christie, the famous author, whom he married the same year. In 1932, after a short time working at Nineveh with Reginald Campbell Thompson, Mallowan became a field director for a series of expeditions jointly run by the British Museum and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. His excavations included the prehistoric village at Tell Arpachiyah, and the sites at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in the Upper Khabur area (Syria). He was also
Agatha Christie Baghdad on the Orient Express. Late in this trip, in 1930, she met a young archaeologist 13 years her junior, Max Mallowan, whom she married in September 1930. Their marriage was happy and lasted until Christie's death in 1976. In a 1977 interview, Mallowan recounted his first meeting with Christie, when he took her and a group of tourists on a tour of his expedition site in Iraq. Christie frequently used settings that were familiar to her for her stories. She often accompanied Mallowan on his archaeological expeditions, and her travels with him contributed background to several of her novels