Mineralogical and Geochemical Analysis

In the geochemical analyses section we will see that the metal objects of the al-Ḫawḍ hoard share some characteristics with the artefacts from the Ibrī/Selme hoard (Tables 4 and 5), while the objects from al-Wāsiṭ apparently show little or no compositional relation to al-Ḫawḍ materials (Prange 2001; Prange and Hauptmann 2001). Such discrepancies are likely to arise directly from the ore minerals rather than from external admixtures (with the exception of tin) and clearly point to a geogenic background variability. Provided that the artefacts can be related to particular rocks, it may be possible to identify potential source areas for