Using Lead Isotopes to Determine Pottery Provenance in Cyprus: Clay Source Signatures and Comparison with Late Bronze Age Cypriote Pottery

Abstract

This paper presents the lead isotopic composition of potential clay sources for pottery production, collected in the four major geological zones of Cyprus (Troodos Ophiolite, Circum Troodos Sedimentary Succession, Mamonia Terrane, Kyrenia Terrane) and evaluates its usefulness in Cypriote pottery provenance studies. The clay isotopic signatures from the four zones are compared to each other and to the isotopic composition of various utilitarian pottery wares from three Late Bronze Age sites, respectively located in southern Cyprus (Alassa‐Pano Mandilaris), east Cyprus (Enkomi), and southeast Cyprus (Hala Sultan Tekke). It also explores the potential of this method to better discriminate between potential raw materials used for the production of Base‐ring ware, one of the most characteristic fine pottery of Late Bronze Age Cyprus, which was widely spread in the Eastern Mediterranean (Courtois, 1981; Vaughan, 1991, 1994). Results show that three main lead isotopic fields can be distinguished among the Cypriote clay sources and the comparison of Plain sherds with the clay sources allows discrimination between local products and imports. They also clearly indicate that all the Base‐ring sherds analyzed in this study were made of the clays from the Kathikas Formation that crops out in only limited parts of southwest Cyprus.

Leave no mudstone unturned: Geochemical proxies for provenancing mudstone temper sources in South-Western Cyprus

“…Photios samples exhibit a wider range of compositions. Siltstone and mélange samples from Renson et al, 2013 have similar Pb compositions but show variation in their Sr signatures. The two mudstone samples from this study and one of the formerly collected clay samples have higher Pb isotopic signatures than the previous ones but the same Sr composition.…”

“…However, such Table 2 Sr and Pb isotopic results for the mudstone samples presented in this study. Pb isotopic data for the samples from Renson et al (2013) were not remeasured in this study and are merely reproduced here. instrumentation is less commonly available and requires a much more intensive data reduction procedure.…”

“…Photios group and the second to the Dhiarizos group. The additional Sr isotopic data helped to constrain the provenance of the samples from Renson et al, 2013, as their initial description was only that they belonged to Mamonia Middle Triassic-Upper Cretaceous lithologies.…”

“…Additional material from the reference collection of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (presented in Renson et al, 2013) was used for this study, in particular material from the Mamonia terrane as well as a selection of Circum Troodos sediments (CTS) (same selection as in Makarona et al, 2014), used as reference for local sedimentary clays.…”

Pottery Provenance in the Eastern Mediterranean Using Lead Isotopes

“…The use of lead isotopes as possible tracers for the origin of pottery has been explored recently on Late Bronze Age (LBA) ceramics and clays from Cyprus (Renson et al . 2011, 2013a,b). The results have shown that lead isotopes can be used to efficiently discriminate between ceramic wares in the Eastern Mediterranean and to link ceramics to their raw materials.…”