Archaeology: the outer view

Giorgio Buccellati – May 2026

Unexcavated elements

Anyone “knows”

a monument standing that has not been in use for a long time, so badly damaged that it is only a shadow of its former self – such as the Colosseum;
a site that hides an unidentified ancient settlement – such as tell Mozan;
an ancient artifact that floats, through an untold story, out of its original context – such as a cuneiform tablet or a Greek amphora.

It is the most generic and least differentiated epistemic confrontation, a “superficial” epistemic confrontation, in the sense that the element is seen in its surface appearance, without any meaningful insight into the context in which it was originally embedded.

Non-contextual excavation

Excavation is the process through which we confront discrete elements embedded within an amorphous mass. As we do this, we disengage a context – and the decisive question is whether or not we seek to define the context. A contextual excavation is the proper mark of archaeology, and we will look at it next.

A non-contextual excavation is of two types

1. Accidental

An accidental non-contextual excavation originates from casual digging, it is generally limited in time and scope, and does not result in any major exposure.

The question of provenance looms large in this case. As an example we may cite the lions of Tish-atal (references).They were sold in Amuda, Syria, in 19.., and they came to be associated with the tell located in that city. During a preliminary survey before our excavations at Tell Mozan, we could easily determine that Tell Amuda showed no sign of occupation at the time when the lions had to be produced, traces of which we could instead see clearly at Tell Mozan. Our subsequent excavations at Temple BA (references) suggested that the lions might in fact have come from the foundation deposit of the Temple: this deposit would have been located by the entrance of the Temple, where we in fact found traces of recent digs. We attributed these to local villagers who intended to dig a place for a grave, and having found the stones of the foundation deposit decided to place the grave at a nearby location where in fact there was a recent cemetery.

2. Intentional

An intentional non-contextual excavation aims to extract individual elements for their own sake, as if items in a safe that has contained them for their intrinsic value. It is the hallmark of looting, an archaeology of sorts, detrimental for the loss of context it causes and formally illegal.

The recent phenomena of vandalism linked to ISIS presence in Syria is an example of this, just as the “tombaroli” “specializing” in Etruscan “archaeology.”

Grammar

Even a first impression approach to one or more archaeological sites entails a grammar, in a variety of shades.

People living in the territory would develop a general notion about the site(s) hiding ancient settlement(s) or monument(s) in plain view. Their grammar may elaborate and introduce interpretive elements, some even based on fantasy, as in the following examples.

At Mozan, the site had become a center of attraction for the local Kurdish population, who came the to celebrate No Ruz: there was no articulate assumption of Mozan as an ancient Kurdish site, but that was the clear implication. When our excavations proved otherwise, it was important for us to dispel that notion, but in a way that would be convincing and would not antagonize the locals.
Some elements might be exploited for ideological and political purposes such as, for example, with the Roman “fasces” (a bundle of rods with an axe, emblem of the power of punishment) as used by Fascism.
A particular shade of this “grammar” is the mystique of the “ruins,” such as the one of the type developed by Piranesi (references).
A scholar would have assumptions about issues like the nature and the time of occupation, based on a variety of clues, such as surface finds or information from other sources.
Ironically, it may be noted that game “digs” for children are often, if unwittingly, encouraging this approach, since they tend to present “buried treasures” without fostering a sense of their reciprocal contacts within the context of the matrix in which they have been embedded.