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Sharing our finds is the final goal of the excavations. This leads in the first place to the “scholarly” publication – which is the preserve of experts working with the full support of their technical expertise. Popularization, instead, is generally viewed as a subsequent step, taken by someone who reworks technicalities into a more accessible language. Our experience, and praxis, is quite different. I believe that culture is a continuum. Presenting the finds to a broader audience entails the same effort at understanding as does the articulation of complex analysis. Hence it should be part and parcel of the primary scholarly effort. Which is what we are doing both at Mozan and in our website. |
 Drawing WGT (Queen, prince and nurse) C. Hilsdale |
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The logo above is taken from the seal impression of the queen's “nurse” – a woman named Zamena who was in charge of raising the royal offspring. This is her seal, where she portrays herself holding the hand of the crown prince who is sitting on the lap of his mother, the queen. Our website offers a wonderful opportunity to emulate the nurse Zamena, by nurturing, as it were, those who have an incipient interest and by leading those already more advanced into the deeper reaches of our site. This leads to a proper fruition of what our site has to offer. Since the beginning of the project, we have offered an advanced field school serving graduate students interested in developing an in-depth expertise in our system. Training of local young people has also been a consistent priority. In the process, we have developed an informal school whose "graduates" range from pickmen to photographers, computer technicians and surveyors. In parallel, we have also developed a special concept of site presentation, which is inscribed in the very strategy of excavation and aims to integrate fully the two moments of exposure and fruition. The privileged visitors are those who can come to the site itself, not virtually, but physically. They are treated by a variety of aids, presented here in detail. For the others, in addition to planning for exhibits that will travel abroad, we provide special “inquiry paths” that lead the visitor through a structured argument that utilizes the resources of the website. At the same time, we offer a forum for feedback, welcoming in particular personal views of our site as well as those new paths on which our visitors may feel like venturing on their own. |