Narrative and data

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Database

The website serves as a database, which is presented in two distinct formats.

1. The data are formatted in a variety of different sorts, for instance by phase with a full synopsis for each individual phase.
2. They are also given as a spreadsheet which can be used at will for personal use.

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Narrative

The website also contains extensive narrative sections that develop an argument that is directly linked to the data, either for the whole website (as accessed from this, left hand sidebar) or for selected portions of the website. As an example of the latter, one may look at the overview to the ceramics of the ED III period: here a full discussion of the characteristics of this period is given, with drawings and charts that link directly to the database.

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Interplanarity

As with the other digital books within the UGR system, the Urkesh Ceramic Analysis book is in fact based on an active interaction between data and narrative. We define this interaction as interplanarity.

The central issue is that the website serves at once as a data base and as the locus for the development of an argument. For instance, in the introduction to the ED III period, just cited, there is a section on Temple BA, which discusses, however briefly, the possible association of a gven type (a small bowl of the simple ware type) with ritual activities as performed in the Temple or the ābi.