Mobility of men versus mobility of goods: archaeometric characterization of Middle Bronze Age pottery in Malta and Sicily (15th-13th century BC)

The aim of this paper is to offer the first petrographic and chemical characterization of Middle Bronze Age pottery of Malta (Borg in-Nadur, half of 15th - early 12th century BC) to discriminate, in the multitude of Borg in-Nadur vessels found in coeval sites of southeastern and central-western Sicily, between imports and imitations and to precisely define their provenance. The present research may provide new data in order to shed light on the long standing issue about 'mobility of men' and 'mobility of goods' between the two insular contexts. A significant amount of Borg in-Nadur pottery from Malta and Sicily have been sampled and subjected to petrographic exam on thin sections; moreover, mineralogical and chemical analyses of major and trace elements were performed by X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, respectively. Finally, chemical data were treated with statistical method (Aitchison, 1986) in order to attempt to distinguish Maltese and Sicilian Middle Bronze Age pottery productions.