Elemental characterisation of Barbar ceramics from Tell Abraq

The early second millennium levels at Tell Abraq have yielded over 600 fragments of friable, red‐ridged pottery with exploding lime grits which is superficially indistinguishable from contemporary, so‐called ‘Barbar’pottery on Bahrain (1). The Bahraini origin of the Tell Abraq Barbar sherds has been demonstrated by means of proton‐induced x‐ray and gamma‐ray emission (PIXE/PIGME) analysis. In addition, the results of x‐ray fluorescence (XRF) of Barbar pottery from Saar on Bahrain (2) have been re‐examined, showing that the subgroups which characterise the Tell Abraq material correspond to those found in the Saar corpus. The techniques used on the Tell Abraq and Saar material – PIXE/PIGME and XRF – are compared.