Reading and writing the UGR

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Introduction

see below

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Reading the UGR

When first approaching the UGR system, one is lead through a logical sequence of steps which take the reader from a presentation of the wider context of the UGR system and from the clarification of the underlying methodology to a set broader thematic issues. This is the sequence described in the system's logo.      This is how we expect readers to confront this particular type of digital publishing: they would acquaint themselves with the UGR context and with the methodology, and then look at the broader thematic categories: the site as a whole, individual structures such as the royal palace, organized sets of data such as ceramics or glyptics.      Typically, readers would refer to excavation units as a repository of data, the data that support the various syntheses presented in the thematic digital books.

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Writing the UGR

When writing the UGR, the sequence between thematic and unit books is actually inverted. The first to be written are the digital books relating to excavation units, each of which has its own website.      Each unit book follows closely the progress of the excavation and is "written" on a daily basis by a number of contributors whose observations are entered in the record, without exception.      This alternative sequence does not, however, apply just to the moment of the production of data: it is also a structural sequence. The unit books are by no means to be seen as just containers of data, as databases. They provide a well-structured presentation of the unit seen as an entity with its own physiognomy.      While serving as autonomous entities, the unit books are at the same time closely tied to the thematic books, which draw on them as they are being written and afterwards, just as the unit books refer to them in their analysis of the data.

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Reading a thematic book

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Reading a unit book

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Examples

As an example, we may look at unit book A16.

An excavation unit is generally limited in size: A16 is typical having 8 4x4 m squares.      But the amount of data is very large, including for instance 347 features and 61,082 ceramic items (vessels and sherds).
grammar and UGR? give page with links to GRM and UGR

detail of one page

MZS: list of beads, setting among units

AP: courtyard

TGL: list by field number