Archaeology: antiquarian

Giorgio Buccellati – May 2026

A non-contextual setting

There are cases where elements of the material culture from a broken tradition come down to us without a stratigraphic context,

either because they have not been excavated
or because they have come to light through a non-contextual excavation.

In either case, there is no matrix, but only the elements. Antiquarian archaeology aims to reconstruct the matrix as far as possible.

Surrogate contextuality

The aim is, we may say, to establish through external clues what the original context might have been. We may look here at the two approaches that are most commonly in use (see also above).

Provenance

The question of provenance looms large for unexcavated objects. As an example we may cite the lions of Tish-atal (references).They were sold in Amuda, Syria, in 19.., and they came to be associated with the tell located in that city. During a preliminary survey before our excavations at Tell Mozan, we could easily determine that Tell Amuda showed no sign of occupation at the time when the lions had to be produced, traces of which we could instead see clearly at Tell Mozan. Our subsequent excavations at Temple BA (references) suggested that the lions might in fact have come from the foundation deposit of the Temple: this deposit would have been located by the entrance of the Temple, where we in fact found traces of recent digs. We attributed these to local villagers who intended to dig a place for a grave, and having found the stones of the foundation deposit decided to place the grave at a nearby location where in fact there was a recent cemetery.

Typology

An object is studied in its formal charcateristics, and is compared to other objects originating from contaxtual excavations. This type of analysis is essentially the same as used in other disciplines, especially history of art and related fields. Ideally, the comparison is with evidence from what is assumed to have been the original cultural setting, evidence tied to contextual archaeology and to the relative typological analysis.

This applies to standing monuments as diverse as Stonehenge, the pyramids or the Colosseum, and to objects that have either been preserved outside of any original context, or have been extracted from their context without regard for the context itself.

The objects found on the surface of a site, such as those from tell Mozan belong essentiually in thsi category, even though in this case provencne from thge site is practically certain.