A collaborative research project between the Research Laboratory of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Chemistry Department of Brookhaven have established a paste compositional databank for Maya pottery that contains more than 12,000 trace element determinations, including those of approximately 1, 500 whole vessels. In this article, the authors illustrate how the Maya ceramic databank can be used to assign a probable source of origin to nonprovenanced, epigraphically and iconographically important vessels. This intensive program of trace element analysis is used for characterizing paste from this information it is possible to infer a delimited source for a vessel's origin. The object can be placed both in a spatial perspective and in a particular style or school of Maya ceramic art.