Perception

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The concept

I take perception to refer to the way in which segments of the outside world are registered and reconfigured by our individual senses and psyche, a configuration that can be shared and then develops gaining a consistency of its own, lasting indefinitely through time. For example, when facing a person we acquire specific information (such as name or profession) but we also register a much larger set of data, some easily defined (such the color of the skin) other less so (such as the gait or the gestures). In addition, the setting in which we meet the person also becomes associated with the relative perception, the reasons for the meeting and its outcome, the general feeling elicited in our response to the encounter. This bundle of responses can obviously be quite complex, each element interacting with the other in ways that are hardly susceptible of full analysis (hence the use, in the definition given above, of the term “psyche” instead of a term like “mind” that refers to analytical intellectual procedures).

Recent trends have given much attention to perception, especially within the framework of cognitive archaeology. In this case one relies on a high level of referentiality, where inference plays a major role. We will limit our considerations to the lower levels, related to the organization of space as it appears in the excavations.

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Referentiality and perception

Referentiality is closely linked to what perception individuals have of the referent itself. We may safely assume that in Urkesh people intuitively perceived the referntial value of a conical cup (i. e., that it was used in celebratory occasions) and this would have given a special status to the object. To use an example from our own culture, a champagne flute carries for us, intuitively, a certain prestige connotation, and would be unlikely to use it for coffee or juice.

The notion of perceptual range refers to the limits that may apply to referentiality. These limits are obvious vis-à-vis a broken tradition: we do not share the native perception, and can only re-create it, if partially, through an inferential process. But these limits may apply also within a living tradition. We will look here at both.

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Perceptual analysis

While referential analysis deals with “things” as referents, i. e., as the objects of perception, perceptual analysis deals with the act of perceiving these referents.

In this regard, the four referential levels may be subsumed under two perceptual levels, depending on whether the referent is viewed exclusively through modern eyes, or whether it is assumed tnat modern categories reflect ancient categories as well.

Thus, one and the same referent may be perceived with progressively finer degrees of specificity as: a scatter of sherds, whose identity is independent of place, a cluster that can be rassembled into a single object, with well definable ,morphological characteristics (size, shape, ware, color, etc.), a conical cup that belongs to a well populated taxonomic family, a prestige vessel used in ceremonial contexts.

A14.119

The first two levels refer to an exclusively modern perception, while the other two refer to a modern perception parallel to what we assume to have been the ancient perception. This may be summarized graphically as follows, building on the chart given for referentiality:

		recovery	reference	perception
1		stratigraphy	fixed place	modern
typology	2	morphology	extra-cultural standards
	3	semiotics	function and use	modern and ancient
4		hermeneutics	meaning

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Limitations vis-à-vis a broken tradition

The correlation of modern and ancient perceptions is limited because of the very notion of broken traditions: there are no living carriers able to share with us their perception of things. Accordingly, steps 3 and 4 are only inferential: this means that they are arguable, since we spell out the terms of the inference and the evidence on which it is based; and that the merit of the inference is in the measure in which it makes sense of a constellation of data brought together according to demonstrable distributional classes.

It is here that the role of grammar emerges as a the fundamental starting point. Distributional classes can only be established on the basis of clearly defined formal parameters – which is precisely the task of the grammar.

Semiotics and hermeneutics use the results of grammatical analysis to develop the inferential process to its maximum potential.

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Limitations within a living tradition

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Social breadth

A given item that would have carried meaning for a person in the royal court of Urkesh might not have elicited the same response in a farmer living at the same time in a remote village of the kingdom. The “reference” would not have been operative, just as it would be for us – were we not to have the supporting evidence of the assemblages and the seal impressions from the palace context.

It is the very diversity and richness of any given culture that is bond to create what we may call “referential gaps.” The referential import of a champagne flute would resonate quite differently today in different levels of socity. Similarly, a type of music that is familiar to a given sub-group may be wholly alien to another sub-group.

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Chronological depth

Within a living tradition the passage of time is another factor that inevitably affects the referential register of the community. We may look here at two contrasting examples from Urkesh.

(1) On the one hand there is continuity, for which we may mention two parallel cases.

The great Temple of the lion and its terrace lasted with its major structural elements essentially in place for some two millennia (Buccellati 2019). This continuity meant that the referential diension, the cult of Kumarbi, remained the live focal point with a substantial identity of purpose and of means to make this purpose explicit.

Then there is the phenomenon of the potters’ “community of practice” (Kelly-Bucellati 2019 Emulation) which has been defined as “a group of craft producers, with no organizational structure, but held together horizontally across space and vertically across time by shared technical and stylistic expertise” (p. 357). Particularly significant in this case is the phenomenon of emulation (p. 356f), where potters sought to imitate elements of an earlier tradition which had not survived within the “community of practice” but was documented by vessels and sherds found at the site, back then as theu are today. This gives evidence for a real awareness of the break and for the deliberate attempt at mending it.

(2) On the other hand, there is the recognition of a break which can create a ,loss in the intuitive referential “inventory”. A classic example in Mesopotamian archeology is that of the beveled rim bowls, which were ubiquitous in the Early Dynastic period but disappeared altogetehr in the later periods (Hopkinson 2023 Experiment)

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A “better” modern perception

Paradoxically, there are cases where the we may say that the modern analysis is of a type that offers a better perception than that of the ancients. In other words, we may surprisingly and arguably say that we relate to the their data better than they did. I will cite two examples.

1. Periodization as we have it gives an insight into historical development that the ancients never had nor could possibly have had, at any moment in their history.
2. Seal design was certainly perceived for all its aesthetic qualities, otherwise there could not have been such a skilled craftsmanship in the rendering of details, in the negative, on a very small base, cylindrical in shape. And yet, there is no indication that the ancients had any rendering of the seal design comparable to what we have today: modern drawings can be blown up to where they show the seal design in ways comparable to large bas-reliefs in stone – a view that the ancients would never had been able to enjoy.

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The role of virtual reality

An important contribution of virtual reality is that it allows to project reconstructions of the built environment in precisely the sort of manner that I am advocating for perceptual analysis. An unlimited number of points of view are available, which is the ideal situation for testing alternative perspectives of the urban space. The relative ease with which one can view not only the extant evidence, but also a projected reconstructed whole, means that one can consider at one and the same time multiple possibilities.

One of the major scholarly potentials of virtual reality is that it can influence very substantially the very strategy of excavation. The intellectual value of virtual reality was one of the principles that guided us since the beginning of our work, as I had the opportunity to stress in the first volume of our reports (UMS1, section 9.2.1). To truly make this ideal operational, the use of three-dimensional models must become embedded in the very moment of excavation, and not remain just an extrinsic product coming long after the close of the excavations. Federico Buccellati addresses deals at length with this problem in UMS 6.