Principles of morphological analysis

Giorgio Buccellati – June 2010, May 2026

From emplacement to morphology

The primary task on the excavation is to document fully what has been excavated, not just what pertains to the project’s research strategy or personal scholarly interests. It is to this end that the whole effort of the Urkesh Global Record is directed. Yet it is just as true that excavators have a special relationship to the data, and that the familiarity resulting from their uniquely personal confrontation with those data enjoins them to extract the fullest possible measure of meaning. Even as excavators we must therefore build wider integrative constructs that bring to bear whatever outside evidence is known to us at any given moment.

Primary categories

Both stationary features (such as walls) and movable items (objects and samples) are seen in their identity as individual elements, but they are correlated to other elements of the same kind: they constitute an assemblage, the validity of which depends on the size of the inventory.

The term “type” refers to either an aggregate or an assemblage when viewed in terms of the formal characteristics that are shared by the individual elements. Thus the conical cups

There are three major categories of elements to which morphological analysis applies:

Built environment – Architecture is the most important aspect, including both structures and installations. But in addition this category also subsumes use areas and loose materials that are associated with structures and installations.
Objects – These are all manufactured movable items, including ceramics.
Samples and specimens – These are all non-manufactured movable items, especially human remains, animal bones, botanical specimens, soil samples.

From emplacement to morphology

stationary/movable

built/objects/samples

no conventions for built environment

elements/constituents

Clustering

Elements and constituents

As argued, elements are the physical building blocks of the system, as they are uncovered in the ground.

Consituents, on the other hand, are the analytical building blocks of the system. They are described in detail in section S1. Nature and structure of the constituents.

Categorization

While the emplacement documentation is final at the very moment that observations are recorded, typological definition of the material found is always open not only to better interpretations, but also to better documentation. What the UGR envisages is a double tier approach to these needs.

On the one hand, a thorough typological categorization is in place to allow for a fine differentiation in analysis from the very onset.

On the other, the system allows for further possibilities to include at any later date further results of in-depth typological analysis.