Terminology: Motif Thesaurus

For the systematic description of the Musawwarat graffiti corpus an expandable hierarchical motif thesaurus was developed during the first field season in 2008 on the basis of form properties and/or apparent graffiti content. The graffiti are initially grouped into three main categories: inscriptions, pictorial graffiti and markings, and they are then assigned to various sub-categories. Because of the immense diversity within the Musawwarat graffiti corpus in terms of variation in form, both the identification of individual graffiti entities and their description are challenging tasks, especially in situations where block surfaces are not well preserved or many layers of graffiti are present. New form variants and 'motifs' are continuously being added to the motif thesaurus.

When graffito entities could not be defined, i.e. when lines were too faint and indistinct, they were not classed as motifs. Instead, the presence of 'indistinct lines' was noted in the 'block table' of the project database. Apart from 'indistinct lines', masons marks were also only noted in the 'block table'. They are not graffiti (as defined for the Musawwarat Graffiti Project), as they are linked to the building process. Masons marks are highly standardised in form and technique of manufacture, and they are thus easily identified and excluded from the graffiti corpus.

Text: Cornelia Kleinitz (2014)