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Relevance of ceramics for chronology
The evidence for assigning a date to any group of ceramics excavated in Mozan/Urkesh comes from the convergent paths within the excavation of stratigraphic emplacement, context analysis, well stratified texts such as seal inscriptions and cuneiform tablets, seal iconography and other objects that can be securely dated; from outside the Mozan/Urkesh excavations comparative ceramics from nearby sites.
In turn, ceramic finds, given their sheer quantity, became, as on every excavation in Syro-Mesopotamia, a key diagnostic tool as chronological markers for the contexts in which they were found.
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Developmental stages in the analysis
As seen in the section on the history of the project, a catalog was built from the shapes found in the earliest excavations where each new rim and base type was assigned a separate code. Gradually with more excavations, more shapes became known, the codes were expanded.
The first catalog focused on the mid-third millennium because we were at that point excavating the Temple BA and the Akkadian palace. With late third millennium and early second millennium contexts, catalogs were developed for those time periods.
As excavations brought to light new horizons, new catalogs were produced, but also special prefixes were used: for the Khabur period a K is placed in front of the shape codes while for Mittani period the shape codes are preceeded by an M and for the Late Chalcolithic 3 catalog the shape codes have LC3 in front of them. The codes are incomplete in the Middle Assyrian catalog because the body of ceramics from this time period is at this point limited. When a shape from this period overlaps with a Mittani shape then the Mittani shape code has been added.
Basic codes were used in all time periods with new basic types in the Khabur and Mittani periods proceeded by either a K or an M. Rim shapes, which are more varied than base shapes, had descrete codes when nothing else about the shape was known. Again as with bases the codes had a K or an M added before the rim code in the Khabur and the Mittani periods.
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Time related lexical codes
As seen in the section on the history of the project history, a catalog was built from the shapes found in the earliest excavations where each new rim and base type was assigned a separate code. Gradually with more excavations, more shapes became known, the codes were expanded. The first catalog focused on the mid-third millennium because we were at that point excavating the Temple BA and the Akkadian palace. With the beginning of the excavation of late third millennium and early second millennium excavation contexts, catalogs were developed for those time periods.
The codes were expanded as needed. For the Khabur period a K is placed in front of the shape codes while for Mittani period the shape codes are preceded by an M, and for the Late Chalcolithic 3 catalog the shape codes have LC3 in front of them. The codes are incomplete in the Middle Assyrian catalog because the body of ceramics from this time period is at this point limited. When a shape from this period overlaps with a Mittani shape then the Mittani shape code has been added.
Codes for bases shapes were established in the same way as the other portions of the shape catalogs. For the bases where we have no other indication of the overall shape of the vessel an all inclusive list of code descriptions was developed for all time periods. When we found new base types in the Khabur and Mittani periods we placed a K or an M in front of the relevant shape.
Rim shapes, which are more varied than base shapes, also had discrete codes assigned when nothing else about the shape was known. Again as with bases, the rim codes had a K or an M added before the rim code in the Khabur and the Mittani periods.
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