As Planned, as Built, as Found: Reconciling Written and Field Records at Ksar es-Seghir (Morocco)
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2016-10-28

The present study reflects the results of a multi-level forensic analysis of architectural written records, archaeological field data (pre-2000 and post-2000), and competing interpretive models (pre-digital and digital) relating to the colonial urban outpost of Ksar es-Seghir (Morocco). The primary written record baseline was extracted from a fresh critical palaeographic reading (edition forthcoming) of the protocol of survey recorded in 1514 CE by a Crown-appointed team of Portuguese architects, administrative agents, and military engineers (Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (Lisbon), N cleo Antigo 769). This baseline material was then set in the context of all other relevant written records, structural proposals, funding appropriations, Crown instructions, and other documents (1458 - 1549) germane to spatial and structural modeling of the locality. For broader context, the results were correlated with an area-wide (Strait of Gibraltar) analysis of related sites (partly forthcoming as “Keys to the Strait: Fortifications in the Strait of Gibraltar from Abū Ya‘qūb Yūsuf to Abū al-asan ‘Alī”, in Stéphane Pradines, ed., Architecture militaire du littoral, de la conqu te Arabe l’Empire Ottoman (Cairo: IFAO, 2016) and partly published as “Contours of Battle: Chronicles, GIS, and Topography--A Spatial Decoding of the Portuguese Siege of Tangier, September to October 1437”, Portuguese Studies Review 21 (2) (2013, rel. 2016): 1-135 (Portugal and its Empire, 1128-1809: A Volume of Papers in Honour of Francis Dutra ). The resulting dataset was correlated, iteratively, in detail, and from a variety of critical perspectives, with data generated by past archaeological projects (1970s and 1980s) that had commenced with the 1974 field season, as well as with data resulting from the post-2010 resumption of work at the site under the auspices of CHAM / Escola de Arquitectura da Universidade do Minho and of the Direction du Patrimoine Culturel (Morocco). In the final stage, the project then proceeded to engage critically with various interpretive traps, possible omissions, likely flaws, or failures of coherence detectable in existing models of the locality (Ksar es-Seghir) as products of the long- run inter-disciplinary research covering Ksar es-Seghir. The goal was to shed light on the variety of processes through which diachronically cumulative errors of interpretation or modeling traps may arise. The conference presentation seeks to highlight issues of methodology and procedure, particularly with regard to interpretation, reconstruction, and resulting overall visualization.

Author - Elbl, Martin Malcolm, Portuguese Studies Review / Baywolf Press, Peterborough, Canada (Presenting author)