Agatha Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930.
Christie met Mallowan during a 1930 visit to the archaeological site at Ur in Iraq, where he was working with Leonard Woolley. He was 13 years younger than Christie, and the pair married in Edinburgh in September 1930. The marriage lasted until Christie’s death in 1976.
Mallowan’s career shaped Christie’s later life and writing. She accompanied him on excavations in the Middle East, helped with archaeological work, and drew on those experiences in books such as Murder in Mesopotamia and Appointment with Death. Her memoir Come, Tell Me How You Live also describes life around the excavations.
A common mix-up is Christie’s first marriage: she married Archibald Christie in 1914, and that marriage ended in divorce in 1928. Her marriage to Mallowan was her second, and she continued publishing under the name Agatha Christie.