The Urkesh Global Record (Version 1, Beta release)

System’s design. Authorship

Authoring the unit books

Giorgio Buccellati – November 2005, October 2023, May 2025

Overview

There are four categories of authorship, relating to the different levels of involvement in the way the publication process is carried out. In a roughly chronological order, the levels are as follows:

background authors at the system level, where the design is conceived and implemented operationally:

system design (the UGR, the Grammar, the typologies)
elaboration of the data (the programs)

base authors at the primary data level, where all documentary observations are found:

primary observations about stratigraphy and typology
production of documentary narrative

contributing authors at the analysis level, where specific topics are developed:

reflections on primary observations
development of specific sectors of analysis

main authors at the synthesis level, where the overall structure is created:

definition of strategy in excavation and publication
coordination of documentary and analytical sections

We will review each of these in detail.

1. System level: Background authors

At the system level we see the underlying scaffolding of the whole project, in three major ways.

1. Overall frame: system design

The organization of the Browser Edition is not a minor endeavor. The complexity of the interconnections, the many levels at which the data are invoked (from the single constituents of each unit to the highest nodes of the website and beyond to other websites), the sheer quantity of the information articulated with a view to maintain an intuitive interface – all of this called for considerable effort and its effectiveness was essential in ensuring the internal coherence of the system as it develoepd over the years. It is now described in detail above in this website.

2. The grammar

The automated portion of the Urkesh Global Record, which accomodates by far the largest body of data, works only because of the rigor with which the underlying Grammar has been articulated and applied to the data. The conceptual underpinning of the entire enterprise depends on this, and, in turn, the effort that went into applying the grammar to the data contributed to verifying and developing the inherent theoretical insights. The Digital Operation Manual provides the practical instructions for the implementation of the Grammar.

3. Typologies

Different bodies of data develop distinctive typological “grammars.” These are essential not only in organizing the items in the measure in which they are found, but also in guiding the overall assessment of the excavatkion as it progresses. This is especially true in the case of ceramics: given the sheer quantity of the data, and the highly differentiated nature of its types, it serves as a constant barometer for chronological orientation nd for an understanding of the functional aspects of the elements of the built environment.

4. The programs

Development of the programs went hand in hand with the formulation of the grammar and with the correlative coding of the data. It is of course because of the several programs written ad hoc for the Urkesh Global Record that automation is posible. This interaction was a cause for expending considerably more time on the overall project, but it proved to be indispensable in achieving the multiple goals I had set for the project.

2. Primary data level: Base authors

The primary record is accessed from the right hand side. It is built up automatically on a daily basis, and it yields a properly digital narrative, in a segmented style. It is used and reviewed by the unit staff on a regular basis.

In terms of actual work on any single digital book, the excavation director and the unit director should in principle be regularly listed as the main authors. In terms of the overall conceptual structure that organizes the data and makes the whole enterprise possible, the person(s) in charge of the system design and the programs should also in principle be listed with the main authors.

In practice, two significant variable enter into play. The first pertains especially to the older units, excavated in the past,in which case it often happens that the unit director is no longer available to undertake the final editorial work. If so, the unit director is retained as main author only when either the record had already developed to a point where it had acquired a significant coherence of its own, or where he or she remains available for consultation.

Primary observations

The personal identification with the minutest of observations derives from a fundamental principle underlying our whole intellectual effort. Thus the attribution of authorship to every atom of the data set is not a nicety (recognizing everybody’s work), nor is it a pedantic redundancy (inflating the record with useless details). It serves rather the conviction that the best measure of objectivity is in allowing a calibration of the observers’ skills. In this manner, the dated attribution of authorship that accompanies each of the tens of thousand of individual records serves a philosophical purpose, one might say. It is a modest but specific contribution to a concrete epistemology of the archaeological record. Each atom of the system is, truly, written in the first person. And yet it is, at the same time, public from the very first moment it enters the record.

Implementation of strategy

The main intellectual responsibility of the unit directors is the implementation of the strategy, which is discussed in meetings at various levels and ultimately defined and regularly reviewed by the overall directors. Thus, besides their supervision of the unit staff members and their specific observations, unit directors have a direct impact on the articulation of the record in its basal state, and thus on the quality of its ultimate publication.

Review of primary observations

As the record builds up on a daily basis, it must be inspected and reviewed carefully. Observations may be missing that can still be retrieved in the field, corrections may be introduced (as additional elements in the record), further clarifications may be added. If this review takes place at some temporal remove from the initial observation, when the data are no longer accessible, then comments are added to identify a problem and propose solutions.

Tabulations

Tabulations are updated each time the documentary record is updated. They are accessed from the right hand side sidebar, lower part, because they reflect a synthetic view of the data. However, they are independent of the critical assessemtn of the data that is proper of the synthetic pat of the record.

3. Analysis level: Contributing authors

Publication brings together the material from different points of view. The secondary narrative is created as discursive text, with no automated features. It is accessed from the top two portions of the left-hand side vertical bar.

The credits on the home page of individual unit books aim to identify the highest levels of involvement and responsibility. Conditions vary greatly from one book to the other, but in principle the major roles are as follows.The main author is the person who

has coordinated the entire body of data into a unified whole, assuring its overall coherence;
has produced a critical overall assessment of the book in all its component parts; and
has written some or most of the overall discursive sections that relate to the synthetic view on the left hand side portion of the digital book.

General supervision is at times required when the main editor comes from outside the project, meaning that he or she has not taken part in the excavation process. This person shares in the responsibility of guaranteeing the overall coherence of the finished digital book.

This concerns in the first place the overall coordination of the publication in its various stages. Ideally, the director(s) of the excavations in the unit

Stratigraphy

Typology

Integrative

Conservation and presentation

4. Synthesis level: Main authors

The main authors are responsible for providing a coherent overview of the excavation unit as a whole. The

Coordination of documentary sections

There are two distinct moments when the data collected in the documentary phase are to be coordinated into a meaningful coherent unit:

the excavation phase, when things are in flux and one seeks to maintain a coherent strategy in response to the flux; and
the critical review phase, when all the data are available in their finished state.

The main authors are the persons who

have coordinated the entire body of data into a unified whole, assuring its overall coherence;
have produced a critical overall assessment of the book in all its component parts; and
have written some or most of the overall discursive sections that relate to the synthetic view on the left hand side portion of the digital book.

There are generally more than one main author for any given book, particularly in unit digital books, though occasionally only one is found (as in the case of J3). Also, thematic books (like the current one) are often with a single author.

They are mentioned in the masthead (home page and front matter), and their specific contibutions are outlined in the editorial support page and/or the ecavation staff page.

1. Excavation strategy

The excavation director has an intimate involvement with every strategic decision and with the practical carrying out of the same, and it is this strategy that guarantees a coherence in the unfolding of the excavation process. If the data collected, with regard to stratigraphy in the first place, are not a welter of scattered and disconnected fragments, it is because of the unifying strategy that guides the process of excavation as it unfolds. This is why the excavation unit director remains de jure a main author of the final publication, even if he or she is not involved in the final critical review.

2. Critical review

What strategy does to process, a critical review does to the resulting record: one has to look at the record in its totality, assess potential problems and inconsistencies,

A synthetic assessment

At a second stage, we find the author(s) of a unit book as a whole. This is the person, or the persons, who make the observations cohere into a meaningful whole, by insuring that the data are all properly entered and processed, and by producing the synthetic and discursive section that is triggered by the keywords in the vertical bar on the left hand side of the display page. In principle, the Unit Director should serve as the main individual in this editorial process. We hope, in the future, to have adequate models in previously published units, and sufficient time in the field after the excavation proper, to ensure that such higher level authorship be indeed tied to the person who has just finished supervising the excavations in the unit, i.e. the Unit Director or Number One. At this stage, this is often no longer possible for units that have been excavated years ago and that still need to be harmonized and published within the framework of the Urkesh Global Record.