Conveying knowledge

Giorgio Buccellati – March 2026

The epistemic framework

In this second part of the Epistemics section, we will look at the way in which knowledge is conveyed to the public, i. e., to "publication."
The area in green in the chart indicates the topics that are covered in full in this grammar. The section about publication is dealt here only in terms of the basic principles that govern it. Full details are given in the dedicated websites to which a link is given here.

Physical and referential record

The distinction between the physical and the referential record is at the basis of my conception of archaological publishing. The two branches of publishing refer respectively to one and the other record.

Re-structuring: the physical record

Having isolated, though stratigraphy, the primary data as found in the matrix of the soil, and having, through typological and integrative analysis, reaggregated the finds into broader classes, at both the intra- and the extra-referential level, one must proceed with a re-structuring of what is left standing, a re-structuring that is both physical and descriptive:

conservation addresses the remains in their physical consistency: this pertains to some selected elements of the built environment that are left standing, and some selected objects that have been extracted and stored;
presentation offers an explanation of the same remains, an explanation that is addressed to both scholars and other visitors.

Re-configuring: the referential record

The physical record is translated or reconfigured into the referential record – and this is the conventional understanding of archaeological publishing, in two versions.

the digital version deals, in the perspective of the UGR, with the global record, i. e., it presents the entire inventory of data as found;
the printed record deals with a synthesis of the finds, corroborated by catalogs, which remain essentially selective, however extensive they may be.

References

Buccellati 2006 cons, Pres B 2017 ch. 8 and 9

Notes

¹^ The term “analogical” is in common use to refer to the printed version of something that can be made available in digital format.