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Meaning and values
There is an immediate relationship to the data in what we may call their raw state. But there must also be a mediated relatioship, mediated, that is, through an appropriation process which must ultimately depend on grammar – even though hermeneutics, as such, does not fall within the purview of grammar.
What hermeneutics seeks to do, is to identify how the material record, as such, may have a deeper meaning that points to values, and this on three levels.
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Three levels
- The ancients. – It is at this stage that grammar plays an indisputable role: there are no living carriers of the cultural traditions, hence no intuitive hermeneutic grasp. Meaning and values can only be inferred.
- Native inheritors. – Archaeological data present a unique claim vis-à-vis the awareness of the people in whose territory the data are located. They are part of the cultural landscape which nourishes them since their birth: just as they are “native” speakers of a given languages, so they are “natively” linked to the past history of their territory. This plays a role in a proper hermeneutic analysis of the archaeological record.
- Adopted inheritors. – The notion of “heritage” extends beyond the territory: it has a wider human resonance which must be made explicit.
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The relevance of grammar
A properly construed grammar is the trampoline to archaeological hermeneutics, via semiotics. There are two major steps in the process.
- Correlation of patterns. – A grammaticalized universe makes it possible to establish patterns and to see how they correlate. The formal dimension is well estalished and objective.
- Inference. – On the basis of such correlations, one may then safely and arguably draw inferences based on the regularity of the patterns.
For an example see the semiotic interpretation of a conical cup under Principles of epistemics. The UGR contains a large number of such semiotic inferences (e.g., the structure in A12 understood as an abi).
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Referentiality and semiotics
The example just quoted shows how, in a broad sense, we may say that the process just outlined is that of semiotics. As indicated in the discussion of the conical cup, semiotics attributes meaning by identifying the referential dimension inherent in an object, and this process, rooted in grammar, is the proper springboard to hermeneutics.
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From semiotics to hermeneutics
Building on what we have just seen, hermeneutics offers the possibility to establish referentiality not just with an object, but with the wider reaches that the object held for the native carriers of a given cultural tradition, whether emotional, spiritual, or simply a as matter of etiquette – as with the conical cup in our example.
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The competence of the archaeologist
What we propose, and what we aim to do cocnretely at the site of ancient Urkesh, is to define heritage in terms that are arguably rooted in the record. “Heritage” is not a vague term that implies a simple acknowledgment of a past more or less romanticized – or even not exploited for political reasons. It is rather based on objective data which only the archaeologist can safely bring to the fore.
There is at times, when talking about heritage, a tendency to allow sentiments to prevail over evidence. This requires, as an antidote, that we as archaeologists show the courage of our competence . It is by proposing an objectively restructured and reconfigured record that the ancient perception can properly resonate with us. The record becomes then a diapason that synchronizes our sensitivity with that of the ancients – the proper goal of hermeneutics.
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