Nimrud ivories that followed the death of Sargon II in 705 BC or when Nineveh fell and was destroyed in 612 BC. Mallowan's wife was the famous British crime novelist, Agatha Christie (1890–1976), who was fascinated with archaeology, and who accompanied her husband on the Nimrud excavations. Christie helped photograph and preserve many of the ivories found during the excavations, explaining in her autobiography that she cleaned the ivories using a fine knitting needle, an orange stick and a pot of face cream. The collection of ivories uncovered by Mallowan were divided between Iraq and Britain, where they remained at the British
Nimrud the work was handed over to Hormuzd Rassam in 1853-54 and then William Loftus in 1854-55. After George Smith briefly worked the site in 1873 and Rassam returned there from 1877 to 1879, Nimrud was left untouched for almost 60 years. A British School of Archaeology in Iraq team led by Max Mallowan resumed digging at Nimrud in 1949. The work continued until 1963 with David Oates becoming director in 1958 followed by Julian Orchard in 1963. Subsequent work was by the Directorate of Antiquities of the Republic of Iraq (1956, 1959–60, 1969–78 and 1982–92), Janusz Meuzynski (1974–76), Paolo Fiorina