Chemical Characterization of Tablets, Sealing Clays, and Source Clays from Tell Leilan, Syria

When attempting to deal with questions involving the emergence and evolution of ancient complex societies, one of the major problems faced by researchers is how to monitor abstract processes from the material remains recovered in excavation. Clay sealings and tablets, which provide multiple independent lines of information: iconographic and/or epigraphic; functional (type of sealing i.e. door lock, bale tag, etc.); and archaeological context have been used in attempts to infer the nature and extent of administrative activities in these early complex societies. Recently, chemical characterization using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) has added a new dimension, clay source provenience, to the information provided by these administrative artifacts. Chemical characterization data for sealing clays from sites in Khuzistan (Blackman 1987); Tal-e Malyan (Blackman and Zeder 1986; Blackman 1989); and Tepe Gawra (Rothman and Blackman 1991) and for a limited number of Proto-Elarnite tablet clays from Tal-e Malyan (Blackman and Zeder 1986) have provided productive new insights into the organization and operation of administrative activities both on an interand intra-site scale.