Tilmen Höyük: A Mineralogical-geochemical Characterization of Some MBA And LBA Pottery Samples.

This is a report on the archaeometric studies we carried out on Simple Ware (hereafter SW), Kitchen Ware (KW), and Preservation Ware (PW) from excavations at Tilmen Höyük.1 Our aim is, on the one hand, to define the composition of these three ceramic classes and the manufacturing techniques employed (probable firing temperature and treatments of the raw material for dating purposes, on the other hand, to ascertain whether the pottery was locally manufactured by comparing it with the mudbricks found on the site, which were surely made of local raw material. Here we present a representative sample of the assemblages dating from the Middle Bronze (hereafter MB) and from the Late Bronze (LB) ages, collected during the excavations. In particular, we analyzed samples throughout the whole 2nd millennium BC sequence of the site (cf. Marchetti 2008a; 2008b; 2008c; 2010). The transition from the Early Bronze to the beginning of the MBA (i.e. MB IA) is represented by samples from areas K5 and V, the MB IB period by samples from areas E, G and K5, MB IIB by samples from areas K5 and G (the archaeologists deem the Q MB II area assemblage to be slightly earlier than the other two), and LB IA by samples from areas G, K5, M and Q.