CHEMICAL AND MINERALOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE ORGANIZATION OF LATE BRONZE AGE NUZI WARE PRODUCTION* N. L. ERB-SATULLO† Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, USA A. J. SHORTLAND Centre for Archaeological and Forensic Analysis, DEAS/CDS, Cranfield University, Shrivenham, Swindon SN6 8LA, UK and K. EREMIN Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138, USA In order to investigate the nature and organization of high-status ceramic production in the Late Bronze Age, samples of Nuzi Ware from four different sites were analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM–EDS) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectros- copy (ICP–AES). Chemical and mineralogical evidence suggests that Nuzi Ware was produced in at least two distinct regions, one probably in the Adhaim Basin in northern Iraq and another possibly in the Orontes catchment in southeastern Turkey. The existence of individual produc- tion units probably developed in response to the local elites’ desire to imitate the tastes of the Mitanni aristocracy, resulting in a mapping of political relationships on to material culture. KEYWORDS: LATE BRONZEAGE, NEAR EAST, NUZI WARE, ICP–AES, SEM–EDS, PROVENANCE, ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION INTRODUCTION During the Late Bronze Age, the Near East saw numerous changes in its political, social and economic structure. Interregional contacts defined the history of Near Eastern civilization from very early times, due to the scarcity of resources such as stone and metal in the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia. Around the middle of the second millennium bc, however, the rise of regional hegemons in Egypt, Anatolia and Mesopotamia set the stage for an unprecedented degree of diplomatic communication. State archives, particularly those from Tell Amarna in Egypt and Hattuša in Anatolia, attest to a vigorous correspondence and a highly developed system of international gift exchange (Liverani 2008; Shaw 2008). Situated between the Hittites, Egyptians and Kassite Babylonians, the Mitanni Kingdom held a central position in the Near East by the early 15th century bc, controlling large parts of Syria, southeastern Turkey and northern Mesopotamia. The lack of archival evidence from the incon- clusively identified capital Waššukanni makes the political organization and history of the Mitanni more obscure than that of its contemporaries (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003, 327). As *Received 31 August 2010; accepted 24 January 2011 †Corresponding author: email nsatullo@fas.harvard.edu Archaeometry 53, 6 (2011) 1171–1192 doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2011.00597.x © University of Oxford, 2011