Mycenaean pottery from Amara West (Nubia, Sudan)

Amara West, built around 1300 BC, was an administrative centre for the pharaonic colony of Upper Nubia. In addition to producing hand- and wheel-made pottery, respectively, in Nubian and Egyptian style, Amara West also imported a wide range of ceramics from Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. A scientific study of 18 Mycenaean-style ceramics was undertaken to study provenance and aspects of production technology. Neutron activation analysis (NAA) results show that the pots were imported from several workshops in Greece and Cyprus. Thin-section petrography and scanning electron microscopy, used with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), show that different recipes were used to make the fabrics and paints of Mycenaean ceramics, reflecting both technological choices and the range of raw materials used in the different workshops. The petrographic and SEM-EDX results support the NAA provenance attributions.