Principles of morphological analysis

Giorgio Buccellati – June 2010, April 2026

Introduction: stratigraphy and typology

The stated aim of the Urkesh Global Record is to fix in published form, first and foremost, the stratigraphic context of all the data. Such immediacy is the only way, I feel, to bring us closer to the ideal of objectivity – the goal being for the original observations about emplacement and deposition to be public in their original state, without being filtered through the subsequent crystallization process when data are analyzed typologically and functionally.

It goes without saying, however, that such a typological and functional analysis is the final goal of our endeavor, and as such it must be an integral part of the record at every step of the way. Hence much effort goes into a full, if perhaps never complete, typological categorization of the data.

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 I offer in the UGR 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 practically unlimited possibilities to include at any later date further results of in-depth typological analysis.

Primary categories

There are three major categories of typological analysis:

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.

a whole which we may need to “disaggregate” in the course of the excavation, by dismantling the bricks and removing the contents. In other words, an aggregate is

palace

There are different levels of disaggregation. Both an object and an installation may be found whole or shattered and incomplete. And each may in turn be correlated to larger groupings of elements that match the same formal and functional traits.

We may say that in this stage we aggregate the disaggregation. Through the definition of formal traits, we can recognize assemblages of structures and items that share the same morphology.

This patterned regularity emerges from extablishing correlations among formal traits of the data found at the site in the first place, and then correlations with different types of data and with with other sites.

Nesting

There is one additional level of complexity: these wholes may be nested in progressive ranges of inclusiveness.

Thus, the tomb shown here as as example may be included in two broader wholes or parallel sets of elements.

On the one hand, it is to be seen within the wider context of the area where is was found – a sort of city of the dead, with a number of other burials in the midst of a living quarter of the city.
On the other, it should be considered as part of an assemblage of similar burial structures, from Urkesh and elsewhere, on the basis of a wider typology that relates to the shape of the tomb, the nature of the offerings, etc.

The conical cups assemblage, in turn, must be seen as part of a wider typological assemblage, in two regards.

Conical cups may be subdividede into finer sub-categories, depending on details of the shape.
They must in turn be seen within the full inventory of ceramic shapes from Urkesh, which at this point amounts to 936 types.

Type

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

The term “collection” refers to the actual total of the elements. In principle, the validity of the context is independent from the total number of elements that can be identified, but in effect it increases in the measure in which the total number of elements increases. A type that includes only one exemplar is