Technology of Pottery Production and Networks of Exchange of a Bronze Age Desert Oasis

Although the origin of the ›Qurayyah Painted Ware‹ is one of the most intensively discussed questions in the field of Levantine archaeology, until today relatively few archaeometric investigations have taken place. This project proposes the first comprehensive archaeometric and technological study of the painted ware from Qurayyah, thereby taking advantage of the exceptional context of the pottery workshop that enables an insight into the entire production process. The main goals of the project are:

1. To determine the petrographic, mineralogical and chemical fingerprint of the vessels produced in Qurayyah. This basic data will allow the identification of which vessels within the Levantine assemblages were produced in Qurayyah and were exported into such distant regions as Amman in Jordan to the north, or Al-'Ula in Saudi Arabia to the south. The determination will help in deciding if the local production was organised by families and tribes at the household level, or at the level of individual workshop industry and beyond.
2. To evaluate the level of the technological specialisation and standardisation along the entire chaîne opératoire and therefore to obtain a better understanding of the productive and economic organisation of a desert oasis in the Bronze Age.

The research methods that are applied integrate investigations at the macro-, meso- and microscopic levels: (1) non-destructive, macroscopic technological investigation on site; (2) thin section petrographic analysis with a polarising microscope to reconstruct the provision and preparation of raw materials; and (3) neutron activation analysis (NAA) to characterise the chemical composition with regard to trace elements and rare elements, which are very expressive indicators for provenience.