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
Stela of Ashurnasirpal II Stela of Ashurnasirpal II The Stela of Ashurnasirpal II is an enormous Assyrian monolith that was erected during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II. The stela was discovered in the mid nineteenth century at the ancient site of Kalhu (now known as Nimrud) by the famous British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard. Dated to between 883-859 BC, the sculpture is now part of the British Museum's collection. This stela was found by Layard in 1850 outside the Temple of Ninurta (the Assyrian god of hunting and warfare) at Nimrud. It was shipped to London the following year and gifted to the Museum