Sybil Muirfield

In the novel They Came to Baghdad, Sybil Muirfield is a woman who had been at one of Dr Pauncefoot Jones's archaeological digs some two years before the events in the book. Dr Pauncefoot Jones mentioned her as an example of why he thought it was not a good idea to have women at an archaeological dig. He told his colleage Richard Baker that he thought they were "safe" with Sybil as she was "a really distressingly plain girl" but "see what became of it!"

Dr Pauncefoot Jones does not give an elaboration about what kind of disruption or distraction Sybil had caused, beyond mentioning that he should have listened to an acquaintance of his, a Frenchman named Claude in London. Nor is it made clear whether Sybil is an archaeologist or a visitor to the dig. The dig in question may or may not have been Tell Aswad.