Website overview

Giorgio Buccellati – January 2025

Introduction

This digital book offers a theoretical and operational presentation of the categorization system that underlies the Urkesh Global Record. The introduction defines what is meant by “grammar” and gives an overview of the website and a brief history of the project.

I. THE SYSTEM

A description of the structural organization of the Urkesh Global Record, this section gives the details for a hands-on operation of the coding system. The system is presented as a grammar in its structural configuration.

II. THE DATA

We can deal with archaeological data

as they are first found in the matrix of the soil, or
as they are assembled independently of the excavation, or finally
as they are preserved and presented.

This section of the digital book presents the details of the recording system as it is applied to these three categories.

1. The matrix: Stratigraphy

The data emerge from an amorphous matrix where they have come to rest as the result of multiple cultural and natural forces, and over very long periods of time.

In a few cases, the original state is preserved, and we can see the data in teir primary functional aggregation. The most obvious case obtains when several walls are seen to constitute a room or a whole building. Another case is that of objects laying on the same floor level, or contained with a pit. These aggregates may be seen as portions of the otherwise disaggregate universe as it is uncovered by the excavation.

For the most part, the data show no relationship to each other : they do not reflect their original functional setting. Their primary definition is thus tied to their findspot and their association with the other elements with which they are in contact. This process is subsumed under the concept and the practice of stratigraphy.

2. Secondary aggregation: Typology and integrative

Once excavated, data can be assembled into meaningful wholes according to two distinct criteria.

The first looks at data depending on their intrinsic qualities: we construct typologies on hte basis of intra-referential attributes, i. e., attributes that refer exclusively to the data in themselves, such as shape or material for ceramics, iconography for glyptics, paleography or linguistic analysis for texts.

The second looks at the data with a view to integrate them into a broader picture, in terma of a variety of extra-referental attribute: these include comparaison with data from other excavated sites; analysis of materials with techniques such as Carbon 14 analysis; confrontation with the broader historical framework as defined by textual data.

3. Re-structuring: Conservation and presentation

Archaeological data present a special problem when it comes to preservation. This is due to the double fact that

the excavation process entails by necessity the need to sacrifice certain elements in order to expose others (hence, they cannot be preserved), and
what is not sacrificed must be immediately conserved in order to avoid its deterioration.

It is for these reasons that archaeological preservation must be inscribed in the excavation strategy., and is therefore part of the grammar. One must indicate the reasons behind the determination as to the disposition of any given element so as to make explicit the nature of the conservation process.

III. APPROPRIATION

Archaeological data present a unique claim vis-à-vis the awareness of the people in whose territory the data are located. They are part of the cultural landscape which nourishes since their birth: just they are “native” speakers of a given languages, so they are “natively” linked to the past history of their territory.

There is an immediate relationship to the data in what we may call their raw state. But there must also be a mediated relatioship, mediated, that is, through an appropriation process which must depend on hte competence of the archaeologist. This is not as such part of the grammar, but it depends wholly on it.