A major aim of the Urkesh Global Record is to fix in published form, first and foremost, the stratigraphic context in which the data fit. Such immediacy is the only way, I feel, to bring us closer to the ideal of objectivity – the goal being for all original observations to be public before and instead of being filtered through a functionally and typologically oriented crystallization process.
For this reason, primacy is given to the individual excavation units, as the place where data are recovered and the pertinent observations are recorded. And within each digital book for any given excavation unit, a firm distinction is kept between emplacement and deposition on the one hand, and typology on the other.
The underlying principles of stratigraphic analysis are described in the Grammar. Accordingly, each unit book organizes the material within stratigraphy under the headings of
Chronology in a wider sense, including data extraneous to the stratiography of any given unit, is found within
- integrative analysis (e.g., A16).
In this section of the MZS sitewide book, I will give a brief description, with relevant overall statistics, of the phenomena as they are documented sitewide.
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