Event: Wednesday Talks: The Dignity of the Fragment Web Based Excavation Reports Between Database and Narrative

ABSTRACT:  Archaeological publishing rests on two basic pillars: printed reports and digital databases. We propose to use the website as an epistemic system that allows for a better integration of the two.  We will first present a concrete implementation of the system as it applies to the excavations at Tell Mozan, ancient Urkesh. The digital record consists of a cluster of websites where narrative and databases are tightly interlaced, allowing for a smooth interconnection between grammar and hermeneutics: the dignity of the fragment rests on the dual aspect of its retaining its individuality while at the same time being seen as part of a meaningful whole. We will then discuss the notion of digital discourse as a theoretical model, according to which multiple planes are structurally interlaced and integrated, having been so conceived, concurrently, by the author(s) so as to be so.

BIO: Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati are a husband and wife team who have worked together for many years in the Near East, especially in Syria, Iraq and Turkey. They directed excavations at Terqa, Tell Qraya and Tell Ziyada in Syria, and they served on the staff of the excavations at Nippur in Iraq and Korucu Tepe in Turkey. Until 2020, they served as codirectors of the archaeological expedition to Tell Mozan/Urkesh in North-Eastern Syria, and they work closely together both in the field and on the publication reports from their excavations, of which several volumes, plus four audio-visual presentations, have appeared so far.