In the ruins of an Iraqi city, memories of Agatha Christie

Christie first visited Iraq before it gained independence from Britain in 1932

Agatha Christie lived here once, but only memories remain of the time the world’s best-selling fiction writer spent among the ruins of the ancient Iraqi city of Nimrud.

The mud-brick house where the British author of Murder on the Orient Express once stayed is long gone. If she were alive today, she would probably be shocked by what has befallen the Assyrian city where she worked alongside her archaeologist husband five decades ago. 
 

Islamic State attacked Nimrud with bulldozers, jackhammers and dynamite three years ago as part of their general assault on Iraq’s cultural heritage. 
 

Iraqi military forces retook the site