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Giorgio Buccellati – January 2025

INTRODUCTION

This digital book offers a theoretical presentation of the “grammar” that underlies the Urkesh Global Record. In the introduction one will find

a personal assessment of the project,
an overview of the website (this page),
and a history of the project.

The details for a hands-on operation of the system are given in the Digital Operation Manual.

I. THE FORMAL STRUCTURE

A description of the structural organization of the Urkesh Global Record, this section gives a series of definitions of the critical elements that constitute the grammar as a system.

The very concept of “grammar” is defined as a structural configuration that goes well beyond the statement of a set of rules.
The constituents are the building blocks of the system, and they are defined by sets of reciprocal oppositions.
The specifics of what each constituent actually is are found in a categorization system that defines variables and variants.
A partoicular aspect of the archaeological record ois hte vlose interaction between the constituents and the archive structure.

II. EPISTEMICS

A grammar is a tool of choice for articulating and conveying knowledge, the two main characteristicss of epistemics. It is in this light that I view the archaeological record, from three distinct points of view:

the matrix: how the data are first found in their disaggregated state within the grip of the soil.
the structuring: how the data are then assembled independently of the excavation process.
the re-structuring: how the data are finally preserved and presented.

1. The matrix: Stratigraphy

The data emerge from an amorphous matrix where they have come to rest as the result of multiple cultural and natural forces, and over very long periods of time.

In a few cases, the original state is preserved, and we can see the data in their primary functional aggregation. The most obvious case obtains when several walls are seen to constitute a room or a whole building. Another case is that of objects laying on the same floor level, or contained with a pit. These aggregates may be seen as portions of the otherwise disaggregate universe as it is uncovered by the excavation.

For the most part, the data show no structural relationship to each other – i. e., they do not reflect their original functional setting. Their primary definition is thus tied to their findspot and their association with the other elements with which they are in contact. This process is subsumed under the concept and the practice of stratigraphy.

2. Structuring: Typology and integrative

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

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.

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 comparaison 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.

3. Re-structuring: Conservation and presentation

Archaeological data present a special problem when it comes to preservation. This is due to the double fact that

the excavation process entails by necessity the need to sacrifice certain elements in order to expose others (hence, they cannot be preserved), and
what is not sacrificed must be immediately conserved in order to avoid its deterioration.

It is for these reasons that archaeological preservation must be inscribed in the excavation strategy, and is therefore part of the grammar. One must indicate the reasons behind the determination as to the disposition of any given element so as to make explicit the nature of the conservation process.

III. HERMENEUTICS

Hermeneutics may be seen as the search for values: the knowledge which epistemics has articulated and conveyed is now received as a springboard for the appropriation of what stands behind the known, what triggered originally a response and can do so again for us today.

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 depend on the competence of the archaeologist. This is not as such part of the grammar, but it depends wholly on it.

There are two levels where this happens.

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.
Adopted inheritors. – But the notion of “heritage” extends beyond the territory: it has a wider human resonance which must be made explicit.