Structuring: wholes

Giorgio Buccellati – October 2025

Identifying wholes

The disentangling of the matrix, whch we have seen to be the hallmark of the stratigraphic process, extracts elements which are fragments of larger wholes, wholes that are not immediately apparent in the stratigraphic record. What is required next is a structuring process that identifies these wholes.

We deal here with a semiotic dimension, one that aims to replicate the semiotic of the ancients on the basis of objective patterned correlations of formally defined (hence, grammatical) traits. The ancients dealt with wholes, not with fragments – the grammar guides us in identifying these meaningful wholes, by helping us in establishing patterned correlations among formal traits.

Degrees of “wholeness”

There are different levels of disaggregation. Both an object and an installation may be found whole or shattered and incomplete. And each may in turn be correlated to larger groupings of elements that match the same formal and functional traits.

Thus a tomb may be found complete, as in the example below, which includes a number of elements: the brick structure, a skeleton, individual offerings, accumulations that derive from the collapse of the roof made of vertical bricks resting on small wooden beams. The tomb then emerges as an aggregate, i. e., as a functional whole. But it needs in turn to be correlated to other elements

We may say that in this stage we aggregate the disaggregation. Through the definition of formal traits, we can recognize assemblages of structures and items that share the same morphology.

What results is a structured universe, which can, to some extent, claim to reflect the semiotic universe of the ancients. Given the patterned regularity of certain “classes” of elements, we may reasonably infer that they were perceived as such, i. e., as classes, by the ancients in a way that parallels our own perception of the same classes – as in the following example.

This patterned regularity emerges from extablishing correlations among formal traits of the data found at the site in the first place, and then correlations with different types of data and with with other sites.

Stationary and movable elements

An aggregate: burial A8a8

An assemblage: 23 selected conical cups

Overview

PROCESS CONTEXT METHOD
2.
Acquiring
knowledge Structuring wholes Typology
Integrative

Process

The structuring process consists in identifying structural wholes

is based on

the identification of formal traits that are shared by a group of elements, which results in the definition of given assemblages, and
the correlation of these assemblages with data .

The validity of the process depends on the quality of the formal system of definitions, and on the accuracy with which the system is applied.

Context

What results is a structural whole, an assemblage, which may be further defined as

Aggregates

fixed/stationary structures,

Assemblages

either a “type” when viewed in terms of the formal characteristics that are shared by the individual elements,
or a “collection” when viewed in terms of the actual total of the elements.

Both stationary features (such as walls) and movable items (objects and samples) are seen in their identity as individual elements, but they are correlated to other elements of the same kind: they constitute an assemblage, the validity of which depends on the size of the inventory.

In principle, the validity of the context is independent from the total number of elements that can be identified, but in effect it increases in the measure in which the total number of elements increases. A type that includes only one exemplar is

Method

The essence of the structuring method lies in the clustering of the data according to intra-referential formal traits and extra-referential traits

Typology

The individual elements within an assemblage are seen to share formal traits, so that they form classes of elements. The notion of structuring refers to these classes, which are structural entities independent of their stratigraphic location, but grounded in the objective attributes that make it proper epistemic reality.

Typology – Once excavated, data can be assembled into meaningful wholes according to two distinct criteria. – Morphology ?

The first criterion looks at data depending on their intrinsic qualities: we construct typologies on the basis of inner-referential attributes, i. e., attributes that refer exclusively to the data as such, e. g., shape or material for ceramics, iconography for glyptics, paleography or linguistic analysis for texts.

Integrative

Integrative – The second criterion looks at the data with a view to integrate them into a broader picture, in terms of a variety of extra-referental attributes: these include comparison with data from other excavated sites; analysis of materials with techniques such as Carbon 14 analysis; confrontation with the broader historical framework as defined by textual data. – Syntax ?

The chart below gives the statistics of a larger selection from eight excavation units, giving the total of vessels and sherds and the totals and percent of conical cups.

unit	total	c.cups	%
A12	47,815	790	1.65
A15	62,117	552	0.88
A16	59,818	350	0.58
J1	44,732	262	0.58
J2	33,582	246	0.73
J3	13,301	13	0.10
J5	18,309	85	0.46
J6	17,182	80	0.46
total	296,856	2,370	0.80

Semiotics

see referentiality

A12: cc second highest [percentage after jars – https://urkesh.org/MZ/A/A12/D/X/XF/FAM-CA.htm