Globality

Giorgio Buccellati – January 2026

Beyond a sense of limit

Since the start of data processing there was a clear sense that the quantity was not a limiting factor. Since the inception of the digital age, technological progress has been developing at a relentless pace, always one step ahead of the perceived need for control.

In this perspective, globality means that the size of the inventory to be controlled is not effectively a limiting factor: we may include everything we want to. We only need to adjust to the conditions set out by whatever medium we choose to use for the storage of the inventory we have in mind at the moment.

Raw data

A limit that was perceived from the very beginning was that the data could not really be “raw.” For example, the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” served to indicate, since the earliest days of computing, that the inventory ought be somehow prepared for processing. With the passing of time, the medium has become more and more accepting, e. g., by correcting misspellings or by recognizing images. But ultimately it remains true that the better defined the input the higher quality the output will be.

Big data

The term is used in a technical sense to refer to bodies of data that are too large for standard processing. We may, however, use it in a broad sense to refer to the fact that, even in standard processing, the volume of data can reach limits well beyond those that could be envisaged in the pre-digital era.

As an example, we may refer to the inventory of ceramic vessels and sherds from one excavation unit at Urkesh, A16: the total reaches a count of 59,818 itmes, nothing having been left out.

The dignity of the fragment

A major aspect of a website database is that it allows to reach instantly the full description of each individual element that is a part of any given universe. Thus the page just mentioned, which lists the 59,818 ceramic vessels and sherds from A16, subdivides the total into

a set of 20 ware types, for each of which there is a complete itemization of every single element (e. g., all 34,179 items of the Chaff Tempered ware),
for each of which one can access in turn a full page not only for a complete vessel (e. g., A16.14),
but even for a sherd (e. g., A16q880.1).

See on this point Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 2026 Density of types.