Archaeology: constructional

Giorgio Buccellati – July 2026

The value of constructional analysis

The grammar we describe for the typological part of contextual archaeology is obviously based on our understanding of the eements that have come down to us. The regularity of the patterns is a factual datum to such an extent that we may reasonably infer that “our” grammar was “their” grammar as well. In other words, we share with the ancient users the same epistemic understanding of the elements of material culture that are extant for us today.

This is supported by various considereations that are subsumed under the category of semiotics, in particular with regard to semantics. If in the excavations we find a structure we know to have been named abi or an object named altanni, and if we have a textual description of how they functioned and were used, we then have a certain validation of the typological understanding of these elements reached on purely formal grounds.

The manufacturing phase was a moment when awareness of the purpose and function of structures and objects would have been particularly keen. An architect or a seal cutter was bound to have a clear sense of what the “customer” wanted, and had to adhere to certain shared standards and canons – which is precisely what the grammar aims to define.

Hence an insight into the constructional moment opens a significant window onto the perceptual dimension of the grammar. The assumption is that creating an element from scratch implies and adherence to the same principles that we recognize as being at the foudnation of the grammar.

Two well established fields of study are based respectively on inferences from the available evidence (buildings arcnaeology) and on actual duplicaion of the original production process (experimental archaeology).

Buildings archaeology

The concept

“Building” or “buildings” archaeology.¹ developed in function of complete standing monuments or buildings, and infers the sequential stages of the construction process on the basis of both the direct evidence of distinctive structural features and the indirect evidence of pertinent documents when available.

The construction history of a given architectural unit may be considered a special branch of depositional history. The latter seeks to reconstruct the moments in the sequence by which things have come to be where they are in the ground. The former does the same with regard to a structure in which sequential construction moments can be identified.

The constructional or developmental analysis of architecture has developed into a specific discipline of its own, for which there is a considerable literature. It applies primarily to buildings that are fully or almost fully extant, and for which there is no concomitant stratigraphic history of deposits built against and on top of the structure itself. In this case, as known particularly from more recent periods of history (such as medieval archaeology), there are primarily two sources of information, the internal analysis of the monument and the study of written documents that relate to the construction phases. The former (reconstruction of time sequencing on the basis of spatial contacts) is intrinsically related to what archaeology has always been doing. In most archaeological contexts, written texts explicitly relating to the construction are not extant, but the associated evidence gained from accumulations that cover floors or abut walls provide similar information. In this respect, archaeological analysis has consistently been concerned with the structural history of a building, much as the new branch of our discipline has been doing. But what the latter can contribute is a finer sensibility for precisely the architectural dimension.

The stratigraphic context

It must be stressed that a developmental analysis of standing architecture is quite different from that of buildings exposed through excavations. In the first instance, we have an architectural whole that is handed down in its integrity to a researcher who can walk into a standing structure. This is conceptually quite different from a situation where a thick matrix of deposits has come to envelop the entire structure over a period of many centuries, so that not a single stone is visible when we first approach the site. During this span of time, substantial adaptations took place in the architectural details of access and circulation, of constructional repairs and changes. In addition, the entire organization of the built environment would generally undergo changes, even when one finds the remarkable persistence of tradition that we reconstruct for ancient Urkesh.

The most important consideration is that all of this (structural and constructional adaptations, reorganization of space, persistence of basic underlying traditions) is derived from a stratigraphic analysis that has conditioned, in the measure in which it developed, the very strategy of excavation. As excavators, we have of course a presumption of understanding. And this goes along with an effort at perceptual analysis, i.e., the aim to identify the unifying points of view that gave coherence to the whole of this particular built environment.

A fundamental misconception may arise, i.e., to argue for a constructional history of a whole that has been articulated through excavation in its currently visible elements, as if this whole were instead available for inspection independently. Were it so, its developmental history could only be argued, indeed, from the internal interaction of the structural components, identified through the analysis of the standing structure. But in the case of an excavated building, the structural components have been isolated as such as a result, and at the same time as a presupposition, of the ongoing excavation. The basic tenets of architectural developmental history were of course very much a part of the very process of excavation, but with the added benefit that the difference between specific structural elements was closely correlated with the other aspects of the depositional process that affected them.

Grammar / Examples

see JP

AP speed of execution , tablet

Experimental archaeology

Examples

In principle, fakes belong here, except that there is no intent at recording the manufacturing process, which in some case includes the reproduction of weathering.

stone wall in AP (fAB book)

seals – very important for grammar

TFH

Grammar

Notes

¹^ The English terms refer to what is known in German as “Bauforschung,” in French as “archéologie du bâti” or “archéologie du mur,” in Italian as “archeologia dell’architettura.” These labels define archaeology in terms of the object, seen as enshrining the evidence of the sequence of actions that brought it into its final shape. The term “constructional” refers more explicitly to this process.