“Methodological Concerns and the Progress of Ancient Near Eastern Studies”
Orientalia, NOVA SERIES 42, 9-20.
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“It is in the nature of a developing field that, as its scope and documentary basis become wider, so too does the range of approaches to the subject matter become more differentiated. Progress can be measured, in other words, not only by the quantitative increase of the data available, but also by the quality of the reflection with which the researcher approaches the corpus. The rhythm of such progress naturally varies as the conditions for research vary. At times it may become so difficult to keep up with the expanding body of new evidence that little time is left for anything but the necessary task of providing an adequate publication of the material at hand. At other times, instead, whether or not the flow of new factual material continues with the same abundance, creative interest in attempting a deeper analysis of the evidence becomes imperative, and a more decisive effort is made at securing new vantage points” (p. 9).
G. Buccellati describes in this paper (presenting a volume in honour of I.J. Gelb) the ‘ferment’ that involved Near Eastern archaeology (and mostly, archaeology in Syria) at the time this contribution has been published: new investigations, both on the field and in museums’ storerooms, led to a much more updated interpretation of the data. Following Gelb’s ‘manifesto’, the author stresses the major results in the socio-economic research addressed to better understand the history of ancient Mesopotamia; he firstly underlines the importance of some seminal works by Gelb, in the field of both archaeology and linguistics (mostly focused on Hittite hieroglyphic system), recalling his publications about the ‘Sequential Reconstruction’ and the ‘Amorite project’, criticising (under the etymological, positive meaning of this term) his approach and methodology as a mirror of both tradition and innovation.
Another basic question if then raised: “How does a discussion about method serve to the progress of the discipline?” (p. 12). Author’s answers (or reflections) as follows: 1) “for one thing, an active concern with methodology can have a useful heuristic effect in that it suggests new testing grounds which may widen the present horizons of research”; 2) “another reason why interest in method can be fruitful is that it allows for a sharper focusing on, and a clearer definition of, the terms of a given problem. Naturally, every scholar operates within the framework of a methodology of sorts; what varies is the degree of awareness of one’s own presuppositions, which may remain more, or less, articulate. Clarifications along these lines undoubtedly help to provide a sense of perspective with respect to limits and possibilities. In practice, this means that confusion can be lessened if sharper distinctions are introduced; especially, it means that mistakes can be avoided if wrong assumptions are exposed” (p. 13).
In the end, the author suggests the opportunity in developing a comparative approach between different disciplines, thus widening the methodological framework and providing a discipline with some tools or patterns of analysis already tested as fruitful of results in other (adjacent) fields. Another important statement regards the application on the field and post-field work of computer technology and informatics in general (confuting some sceptical visions on this topic), allowing the development of a new trend in recording and interpreting archaeological (and also philological) data.
The very last section discusses about the role of the anthropological (i.e. personal) perspective of each scholar on a defined topic and faces the question of how to conciliate the modern organic approach in studying ancient evidence, considered as a whole and the segmentation of the disciplines because of a very fragmentary (hyper-)specialization of the scholars; a tentative solution is suggested: “The parts should not be isolated and divorced from the context in which they are naturally embedded: rather, their degree of association should be analyzed both in its own right and because it sheds light, in turn, on the individual elements in themselves. In other words, the system or the structure is as important as its components” (p. 16), avoiding (as far as humanly possible) any personal superposition on the archaeological or linguistic datum, and trying to understand each singular segment of information under the scope of its wider context, eventually reducing the particular differentiation to a comprehensive unity [this topic is strictly correlated to the concept and definition of ‘grammar of the archaeological record’].
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