The recovery process

Giorgio Buccellati – April 2026

Recovery

refer to broken traditions

Recovery corresponds to the two major epistemic categories of acquiring and organizing knowledge. It is the basic

Excavation: the epistemic dimension

There are two major steps in the recovery process:

the extraction of disaggregate fragments, and
the reaggregation of the fragments into meaningful wholes.

The first step is the one that is exclusively found, from an epistemic point of view, in archaeology. No other discipline deals with the process of extracting cultural data from the ground.

The second step, on the other hand, refers to theoretical models and on methods that are also found in other disciplines, all the while maintaining a distinctive approach which is conditioned by the original status of the data as having been found disaggregated in the ground.

Analysis

Synthesis

The process of “recovery”

The question arises: how can we claim objectivity in aiming to ascertain how these things “worked” in their original context? and, consequently, what meaning may they have had for their users?

The process goes through three steps.

1. Grammar: the brokenness. – The data must be recorded as found, in their brokenness. Each element that is excavated is identified according to a set of criteria that is independent of potential meaning – as to its location (emplacement) and formal traits (typology)

2. Semiotics: function. – One must then identify patterns that correlate the fragments in their disaggregation. The regularity of patterns cannot be accidental, and thus we can plausibly infer that the clustering of elements signals an original intention and c.onseauently an original function.

3. Hermeneutics: meaning. – Correlating the data as found to a variety of other data from the excavations and behyond, we mayk then infer what was the meaning of what has been recovered, both for the ancients and for us.

The UGR model

The UGR system prioritizes the three steps in sequence.

At the very moment of excavation, thegrammatical approach is given absolute priority and total attention < in a double direction. First, every single element is described as to its emplacement, deposition and typology in full detail. Second, the data so analyzed remain forever part of the record.
Still during excavations, but also subsequently,, there is a sustained effort at providing a semiotic definition of the elements, both in terms of their being classified into substantive wholes and in terms of identifying the specific traits that pertiane to the ir assumed function.
Largely after the excavation is over, often at great distance in time, the greater interpretive effort brings to bear on what are perceived to be the more “important” elements the weight of comparative and intgegrtive analysis, seeking to situate them in what is assumed to have been their context in actual life (the “Sitz im Leben”).

Examples

see GRM As an example we may look at the underground structure whlich came to be identified as a Hulrrian abi found in unit A12.

Grammar: permanently placed stones forming a cylindrical enclosure include a number of superimposed layers, each containing a variety of movable items, all of which are documented individually and in terms of their location.
Semiotics: the clustering of animal bones shows an unusual pattern, with a preponderance of bones of piglets and puppy dogs; this pattern is repeated in all superimposed layers, from which one can infer that the structure served a specific purpose over a long period of time.
Hermeneutics: comparing these data with written texts from Hittite culture, which is known to be related to the Hurrian population at Urkesh, it can be concluded that this structure served as a channel to the Netherworld, known in Hurrian as abi.