PIXE cluster analysis of ancient ceramics from North Syria I.E. Kieft a,1 , D.N. Jamieson a, * , B. Rout a , R. Szymanski a , A.S. Jamieson b a School of Physics, Microanalytical Research Centre, University of Melbourne, Vic. 3010, Australia b Heritage Victoria, 22/80 Collins Street, Melbourne 3000, Australia Abstract Tell Ahmar is a place situated on the east bank of the Euphrates river, near the Turkish border. The site was well known as a major trade centre in the Iron Age. From the many potsherds excavated from the site, it is necessary to distinguish pottery imported from outside from that made locally. Therefore a sample of the Iron Age potsherds that were excavated from this site was analyzed with particle induced X-ray emission to identify the characteristic com- position of the different sherds. Potsherds from four other places near Tell Ahmar were also analyzed. The samples were irradiated with a scanned 3 MeV proton beam in the Melbourne nuclear microprobe. The composition of all sherds measured by this method was similar. However, cluster analysis of the 12 most abundant elements, ranging from Mn to Ba, revealed that the samples known to be from Tell Ahmar could be distinguished from those known to be from elsewhere. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 82.80.E; 81.05.Mh Keywords: PIXE; Archeometry; Cluster analysis 1. Introduction and motivation In the Iron Age Syria was the main target for the Assyrian expansion. In this period major cul- tural and historical developments were going on [1]. One of the places that was known as a major trade centre in the Iron Age is Tell Ahmar. In antiquity Tell Ahmar was known as Til Barsib. It is located near one of the main crossings of the Euphrates and it has been a key site in relations between Mesopotamia and the West. In this project ceramics from Tell Ahmar as well as ceramics from four other places in the neigh- borhood of Tell Ahmar were analyzed. The com- position of the artifacts from the different places was compared. The potsherds that were excavated from these other places are known to originate from different time periods in history. The other locations were Tell el-Banat (Early Bronze Age), Tell Amarna (Early Bronze Age), Jebel Khalid (Hellinistic) and Tell Aber (Ubaid). PIXE analysis, with cluster analysis, has already shown to be sensitive enough to determine the provenance of ceramics from Italian shipwrecks [2], African clay and ceramics from archeological sites [3], ceramics from Teotihuacan, Mexico [4], Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 190 (2002) 492–496 www.elsevier.com/locate/nimb * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-3-9344-5375/45454; fax: +61-3-9347-4783. E-mail address: dnj@physics.unimelb.edu.au (D.N. Jamie- son). 1 Permanent address: Department of Applied Physics, Ein- dhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, Netherlands. 0168-583X/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0168-583X(01)01284-8