https://urkesh.org / RECORD / GRAMMAR / overview

A Grammar of the Archaeological Record (Version 2, Beta release)

Introduction

Website overview

Giorgio Buccellati – January 2025

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PRELIMINARIES

     The contents of this section follow a format that is similar for all websites in the system, described in UGR website:
  • utilities,
  • editorial,
  • intoduction to this particular website.

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

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I. THE SYSTEM’S CONFIGURATION

     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 particular aspect of the archaeological record is the close interaction between the constituents and the archive structure.


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II. EPISTEMICS

     A grammar is a tool of choice for articulating and conveying knowledge, the two main characteristics 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.

See below for more details.

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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.

The role of hermeneutics at the time of excavation is limited, bult important, and attention for the “inheritors” must be inscribed already at the level of grammatical analysis.

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REFERENCES

UGR website

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