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
David Oates (archaeologist) he took part in the excavations led by David Talbot Rice of the Great Palace of Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey. In 1954, he was sent to Iraq by the British Academy to review the work of Sir Aurel Stein. This work led to the publication of a monograph, "Studies in the Ancient History of Northern Iraq", in 1968. From 1955 to 1962, he worked on Max Mallowan's excavation of Nimrud; Oates was director of the excavation from 1958. In addition to his fellowship at Trinity College, he was also a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 1957