NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS RESULTS OF BRONZE AGE POTTERY FROM BOEOTIA INCLUDING TEN LINEAR B INSCRIBED STIRRUP JARS OF THEBES # # & H Mommsen E Andrikou V Aravantinos and J Maran Institut fur Strahlen und Kernphysik University Bonn Nussallee D Bonn # Germany Ninth Ephorate of Antiquities Theb es Greece Institut fur Ur und Fruhge & schichte University Heidelb erg Marstallhof D Heidelb erg Germany ABSTRACT Neutron activation analysis results are presented of ab out p ottery sherds from Bo eotia dating to the Bronze Age and esp ecially to the Mycenaean p erio d As in other regions of Greece the new material again revealed mainly a distinct number of statistically distinguishable comp ositions which as yet do not o ccur in our databank This may b e interpreted as a consequence of a regional pro duction in only a few p ottery workshops exploiting a limited number of clay b eds or using a limited number of clay recip es The analysis of samples from the Linear B inscrib ed stir rup jars of Theb es gives further pro of to an origin of these vessels in Chania Western Crete Keywords Aegean Bronze Age Mycenaean p ottery Theb es Orchomenos Bo eotia Greece Neutron activation analysis chemical ngerprinting provenance Linear B inscrib ed stirrup jars INTRODUCTION In continuation of the pro ject Pottery pro duction and distribution of Bronze Age settlements of Mycenaean Greece and the Aegean ab out new samples from Bo eotia were analysed by neutron activation analysis NAA The results have b een added to the large Bonn p ottery databank comprising meanwhile more than samples Here we will rep ort only ab out these new measurements from Bo eotia and their multivariate statistical grouping The metho dical and archaeological results will b e discussed at a regional scale and in the light of the whole Greek databank of Bonn The well known metho d of chemical ngerprinting applied in Bonn to classify p ottery sherds according to their pro duction recip es as well as the general aims and the scop e of our Mycenaean pro ject have b een already describ ed at length in several earlier pap ers to which we refer to avoid p erp etual rep etitions see Perlman and Asaro Mommsen et al Maran et al The Mycenaean p ottery of Bo eotia is not very well investigated by chemical analysis using NAA Only a few sherds from this region have b een analysed by the Berkeley group the results of which have b een presented only recently without clear provenance assign ments Tomlinson A comparison of these date with our results is in preparation Other analytical work summarized in Jones p p with optical emission or atomic absorption sp ectroscopy measured either only a very small number of overlaping elements or have not the high exp erimental precision needed for a succesful comparison with our data SAMPLE CHOICE The many samples of p ottery sherds from Bronze Age Greece analysed in the course of our pro ject cover already many regions from Macedonia and Thessaly in the north and Lo cris in Central Greece to the Peloponnese Melos and Crete Now with the results of ab out samples from Theb es and Orchomenos in Bo eotia we hop e to ll an imp ortant further gap in central Greece and to detect chemical reference patterns for this region if present But as in other regions of Mycenaean Greece the availability of p ottery pro ducts of clearly lo cal Bo eotian pro duction like kiln wasters is scarce or even absent We therefore have to rely again on arguments of frequency distributions to recognize reference patterns which was one of the reasons for the large number of samples chosen for analysis from these two places A further argument strengthening a p ossible lo cal provenance is a large chronological depth of the o ccurence of a chemical pattern The time p erio d covered by the sample choice was therefore extended if p ossible b eyond the Mycenaean Late HelladicLH BC to the Middle Helladic p erio d although the main part of the samples from Bo eotia originate from the palatial and p ostpalatial LHI I IA I I IC p erio d Most of the pieces sampled derive from excavations conducted under the direction of the Ninth Ephorate of Antiquities at Theb es and are stored in the museum and magazines there Mainly sherds and some whole vessels found in Theb es and Orchomenos and in cemeteries in the vicinity of Theb es have b een chosen which by archaeological means can b e classied as lo cal but some types are very similar to the well known wares of the Argolid Of sp ecial archaeological interest are samples of the over large stirrup jars with Linear B inscriptions which have b een excavated in the year by A Keramop oulos in a palatial building at Theb es named Kadmeion NAA RESULTS OF THE NEW MATERIAL FROM BOEOTIA The multivariate statistical grouping of the ab out new samples from Theb es and from Orchomenos using our mo died Mahalanobis lter metho d Beier and Mommsen revealed a result already known from the investigation of Mycenaean p ottery of other Greek regions As usual with measurements of high precision ab out of all samples are found to b e chemical loners and not members of one of the groups detected All other samples have chemical patterns which may b e allo cated unequivocally to the dierent groups As in the case of other regions previously included in our pro ject most of the groups from Bo eotia are new since hitherto unknown chemical patterns are found Excluding the Linear B inscrib ed jars the material of Theb es and Orchomenos can b e chemically classied into groups All these groups are well distinguishable by our lter metho d including a b est relative t to consider p ossible dilutions due to p ottery making practices The result of a discriminant analysis of these group ed sherds is shown in Figure and ascertains the lter grouping A relo cation calculation do es not change the group assignments The average concentration values M and their spreads ro ot mean square deviations of the groups are listed in Table Three of the groups a f and h can b e presumably linked with sp ecic places within Bo eotia while the groups b c and d can b e only assigned to this region in general The groups named a and f app ear only at Theb es except one sherd with comp osition a from Eastern Lo cris added in Table and the group h only at Orchomenos and not at any other site in Greece represented in our data bank According to the dating of the group members to the p erio d LH I I IAC group a seems to represent the main Theban pattern during the palatial and p ostpalatial p erio d One sherd of a skyphos with a rosette decoration representing a leading form of the Northeastern Peloponnese b elongs to this group Presumably the Theban workshop or workshops imitated the decorative forms coming into use in other regions The only small group f is b elieved to b e also lo cally pro duced at Theb es since an uninscrib ed tablet from the Theban archives and a clay lump ready to b e used for tablet preparation b elong to it In addition two sherds of the Handmade Burnished Ware which could however stem from the same vessel are also members of f It can thus b e assumed that they were also lo cally pro duced It has to b e p ointed out though that two other pieces of this ware from Theb es do not fall within this group and may represent a second group since they form a pair This particular kind of p ottery makes it rst app earance at the end of the palatial p erio d LH III B but o ccurs most frequently in the p ostpalatial p erio d Since this rather coarse kind of p ottery in shap e decoration and mo de of manufacture diers from the Mycenaean p ottery pro duction it is often asso ciated with inuences of foreign p eople from Italy andor from the Balkan Rutter At least in the case of f our analysis p oints to a pro duction on a lo cal basis and not to an imp ort from abroad Since the still small group h of members is found only in material from Orchomenos and has a long span of o ccurence there it seems to represent the lo cal ngerprint of that second center of Bronze Age Bo eotia As in the Argolid where dierent p ottery workshops were found b eing asso ciated to the centers Mycenae and Tiryns here also a connection of the p ottery pro duction with particular centers seems to emerge Groups b and the smaller groups c and d are mutually very similar and b elong pre sumably also to a Bo eotian pro duction although more analytical work from neighbouring regions like Eub o ea and Pho cis has to b e awaited to exclude an origin from there Group c of samples from Theb es and Orchomenos is found also in additional sherds from other regions mainly Eastern Lo cris These sherds are included in the patterns given in Table Groups d and c dier mainly from b by gradually increasing Th and decreasing Co Cr and Ni values The pattern b is found in of the samples from pictorial craters one such sample a crater depicting sphinges b elongs to group c and one pictorial sherd remains as a chemical loner As an unexp ected result a brick and a ro of tile also b elong to group b which enhances the probabilty of lo cal manufacture for this group Group i o ccuring only in the material of Orchomenos is similar to a group of sherds found at Loutraki Katounas in AitoloAkarnania group aitolo in Mommsen et al It was considered to b e the main group there This similarity is still unexplained and the pro duction place of these sherds is questionable The long pro duction time p erio d MH II SH I I IC of the members of this group comprising ne Grey Minyan and unpainted Mainland Polychrome