Kassite Babylonia counts among the great powers of the Late Bronze Age Near East. Its kings exchanged diplomatic letters with the pharaohs of Egypt and held their own against their Assyrian and Elamite neighbors. Babylonia's internal workings, however, remain understood in their outlines only, as do its elite's expansionary ambitions, the degrees to which they may have been realized, and the nature of ensuing imperial encounters. This is especially the case for the region to the northeast, where the Mesopotamian lowlands meet the Zagros piedmonts in the Diyala River valley and where a series of corridors of movement intersect to form a strategic highland-lowland borderland. In this paper, we present critical new results of regional survey in the Upper Diyala plains of northeast Iraq and excavations at the Late Bronze Age site of Khani Masi. Not only do our data and analyses expand considerably the known extent of Babylonia's cultural sphere, but also the monumental character of Khani Masi and its wider settlement context prompt a fundamental rethinking of the nature and chronology of Babylonian presence in this transitional landscape. As such, this paper contributes an important new case study to the field of archaeological empire and borderland studies. 1 introduction Kassite Babylonia (ca. 1550-1150 B.C.E.) was one of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age, an international age in which the expansive polities of 1 We would like to thank the General Directorate of Antiquities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Garmian Department of Antiquities for allowing us to work in this important area and for their ongoing support. In particular we must thank Abwbakr Osman Zainadin (Mala Awat), Director General of Antiquities and Heritage for the Kurdistan Region, and Shwkr Muhammed Haydar, Director of Antiquities and Heritage for Garmian. In Garmian, we owe a special debt of gratitude to Salah Muhammad Samin, Deputy Director of the Museum, and our representatives during fieldwork, Nawzad Latif, Ahmed Ismail, Jamal Muhamed, Sawat Hambden, Muhamad Ali, and Awat Baban. We thank Jakob Lauinger for reading and commenting on parts of this manuscript.

Several plasters and mortars from the Middle Bronze Age site of Erimi – Laonin tou Porakou (Cyprus) were analysed in order to perform a technological characterization. Morphological (SEM), elemental (EDX), mineralogical (XRPD), petrographic (polarized OM, SEM–EDX), thermal (TGA) and spectroscopic (FT–IR) techniques were applied. Plasters and mortars were identified as pyrotechnological lime products, obtained using local raw materials and containing a moderate amount of spathic calcite fragments. The use of organic fibres was ascertained and a seminal use of a crumbled ceramic as additive was evidenced.

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