Mallowan, Max (Edgar Lucien) (1904–1978)

British archaeologist. Before World War II he worked under Leonard Woolley at Ur, excavated at Nineveh, and directed operations at Arpachiya in Iraq, and at Tell Brak and Tell Chagar Bazar in Syria. As director of the extensive excavations at the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud 1949–63, he uncovered valuable new finds.

His Assyrian finds included the Great Palace of Assurnasirpal II, with clay tablets dating from 808 to 727 BC documenting contracts, loans, sales of commodities such as slaves, and metal.

After World War II Mallowan was professor of Western Asiatic archaeology at the University of London 1947–62 and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1962–71. He was the first director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq 1949–58, the chair 1966–70, and the president from 1970. He married the detective novelist Agatha Christie 1930.

Mallowan published a number of books, including Twenty-Five Years of Mesopotamian Discovery 1956, Early Mesopotamia and Iran 1965, Nimrud and its Remains 1966, Ivories from Nimrud with L G Davies and G Herrmann 1970 and 1974, and Ur: the Old Babylonian Period with C L Woolley 1974.