{ "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-12T11:15:52Z", "providers": [ "Codex" ], "breadth": "recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read", "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "seconds": 19.9, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.4\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a09553-8f61-7462-a391-8351ab1afce1\n--------\nuser\nDescribe what is already known about one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: Mesoamerican architecture\nSense to describe: (none recorded)\nDomain code: ACT.ACT\nAlso known as: (none)\n\n\nContext for this batch of 1001 things:\n# Batch", "usd": 0.0, "recall": true }, "codex": { "seconds": 76.2, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.4\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a09553-8f71-74a3-851d-221e6f159fa0\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: Mesoamerican architecture\nRegistry id: vr.tr.mesoamerican-architecture\nPlane / domain: ACT / ACT.ACT\nRegistry definition: (none recorded)\nNames folde" } }, "enrichment": { "pass": 3, "engine": "claude", "producedAt": "2026-10-06T12:00:00Z", "ingestedAt": "2026-10-06T08:45:55+00:00", "fields": [ "agent_conduct", "ethics", "failure_modes_and_hazards", "owners", "standards_and_regulation", "visual_identification" ] }, "gate": { "passed": true, "version": "1.0", "at": "2026-10-07T10:10:29+00:00", "evidence": [ "completeness 1.00", "sense: Wikidata description", "2 live sources", "review by codex: pass" ] } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q2650380", "registryId": "vr.tr.mesoamerican-architecture", "name": "Mesoamerican architecture", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.ACT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q2650380/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.mesoamerican-architecture", "name": "Mesoamerican architecture", "purpose": "Enable an agent to recognise Mesoamerican architectural traditions, record evidence for their attribution and interpretation, and judge which comparisons or interventions that evidence supports.", "definition": "Mesoamerican architecture comprises the regionally and historically varied building and spatial-planning traditions of Indigenous societies of Mesoamerica, especially those preceding Spanish colonisation, encompassing domestic, civic, ritual and infrastructural construction.", "scope_statement": "This model owns Mesoamerican architecture as a regionally and historically differentiated architectural tradition, including practices of construction, spatial organisation, use and transformation; individual buildings and sites provide evidence without defining the whole tradition.", "in_scope": [ "Geographic, chronological and cultural criteria for attributing architecture to Mesoamerican traditions", "Relationships among platforms, pyramidal substructures, temples, plazas, palaces, ballcourts and residential compounds", "Construction materials, structural systems, surface treatments and successive building phases", "Relationships between architectural space, ritual, political authority and everyday habitation", "Evidence supporting architectural interpretation, reconstruction and conservation" ], "out_of_scope": [ "Complete archaeological inventories and excavation records for individual sites", "General histories of Mesoamerican societies beyond their architectural relevance", "Portable artworks and inscriptions except where they inform architectural context", "Architectural traditions elsewhere in the Americas merely grouped as pre-Columbian", "Modern revival architecture as an original instance of an ancient tradition", "Engineering specifications and permits for individual conservation projects" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Attribution requires a supported connection to a Mesoamerican cultural and chronological context; a stepped pyramidal silhouette alone is insufficient.", "Recognition considers an ensemble's spatial relationships, construction sequence and use evidence rather than identifying the tradition from an isolated monument.", "Regional or cultural labels must be supported independently; Maya architecture is a narrower attribution, not a synonym for all Mesoamerican architecture.", "An ancient building phase, a modern reconstruction and a revival design must remain distinguishable even when they share visible forms.", "Proposed ritual or astronomical functions require contextual evidence beyond monumental scale or apparent alignment." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Cultural and regional attribution", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Linked region, community or architectural tradition, with evidence and attribution confidence", "why_it_matters": "Prevents a broad regional category from erasing differences or implying unsupported cultural identities." }, { "name": "Architectural phase chronology", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Date interval in BCE/CE, dating method and uncertainty", "why_it_matters": "Separates successive construction episodes and supports comparisons between contemporary examples." }, { "name": "Architectural component", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Platform, pyramidal substructure, temple, plaza, palace, ballcourt, residential compound, other or unresolved", "why_it_matters": "Distinguishes observable form from conventional labels that may imply an uncertain function." }, { "name": "Ensemble configuration", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Component adjacency, enclosure, elevation, axial relationship and access connection", "why_it_matters": "Captures how buildings and open spaces operated together." }, { "name": "Construction system", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Documented combinations of earth, masonry, timber, plaster, fill, roofing and support techniques", "why_it_matters": "Supports comparisons of building practice without treating visually similar structures as technically identical." }, { "name": "Orientation", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Azimuth in degrees relative to stated north reference, with survey uncertainty and relevant horizon data", "why_it_matters": "Makes alignment claims testable and separates measurement from interpretation." }, { "name": "Attributed use", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Residential, ceremonial, administrative, funerary, ballgame-related, mixed, other or unresolved; evidence attached", "why_it_matters": "Allows multiple or changing uses instead of deriving function directly from form." }, { "name": "Material authenticity", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Ancient fabric, ancient alteration, modern repair, reconstruction, hypothetical rendering or unresolved", "why_it_matters": "Controls which visible features can support historical claims." }, { "name": "Interpretive support", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Directly observed, supported inference, contested interpretation or untested hypothesis", "why_it_matters": "Keeps architectural description separate from uncertain explanations of meaning and use." } ], "affordances": [ "Assess a proposed attribution using regional, chronological and construction evidence.", "Compare architectural ensembles while controlling for period, region, function and preservation.", "Trace rebuilding episodes and changes in access, elevation and use.", "Evaluate ritual, political or astronomical interpretations against documented alternatives.", "Identify evidence gaps before presenting a reconstruction or supporting a conservation proposal." ], "agent_conduct": { "may": [ "Describe Mesoamerican architecture and sites from archaeological sources.", "Credit Indigenous builders and descendant communities." ], "must_not": [ "Help loot or damage archaeological sites.", "Present pseudo-archaeological claims, such as foreign builders, as fact.", "Disrespect sacred sites or descendant communities.", "Encourage climbing or entering protected structures where it is prohibited." ], "requires_human": [ "Publishing precise locations of unprotected sites." ] }, "ethics": { "considerations": [ "These sites are heritage of living Indigenous peoples.", "Tourism and looting threaten sites." ], "affected_parties": [ "Indigenous descendant communities", "Archaeologists", "Visitors" ] }, "owners": { "steward": "The states where sites are located, under heritage law; descendant communities hold cultural ties.", "master_systems": [ "National archaeological site registers", "World Heritage List" ] }, "visual_identification": [ "Stepped pyramids with temples on top, plazas and ball courts.", "Carved stone facades, stucco and murals." ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Looting destroys archaeological context.", "Tourism wear and erosion damage structures." ], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972, UNESCO." ], "what_it_is_for": [ "Mesoamerican architecture is encountered in archaeological sites, surviving structures and reconstructions of settlements across the region.", "Its study helps interpret domestic life, political authority, ritual practices and relationships between buildings and landscapes.", "Documentation and conservation use regional and chronological evidence to distinguish traditions and guide the treatment of surviving remains." ] }, "sources": [ { "id": "wikidata", "title": "Wikidata item Q2650380: Mesoamerican architecture", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2650380", "url_status": "live", "what_it_supports": "identity and sense of the item", "checked_by": "wikidata-api" }, { "id": "wikipedia-en", "title": "Wikipedia: Mesoamerican architecture", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_architecture", "url_status": "live", "what_it_supports": "general description of the item", "checked_by": "wikidata-api sitelink" } ], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "attribution-and-boundaries", "name": "Attribution and boundaries", "description": "Establish what qualifies as Mesoamerican architecture and at what level a more specific attribution is defensible.", "rationale": "A broad architectural category must accommodate regional variation without becoming a label for every ancient American monument.", "layers": [ { "id": "regional-and-temporal-membership", "name": "Regional and temporal membership", "description": "Record the geographic and historical basis for inclusion.", "findings": [ { "id": "supported-membership", "name": "Supported membership", "description": "Require an explicit basis for inclusion rather than treating location or appearance as sufficient.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which geographic and chronological definition of Mesoamerica governs this attribution?", "kind": "definition", "id": "supported-membership-q01" }, { "text": "What archaeological or historical evidence connects the architectural phase to that defined context?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "supported-membership-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "tradition-and-transmission", "name": "Tradition and transmission", "description": "Distinguish regional traditions, shared practices and later reuse of forms.", "findings": [ { "id": "specific-attribution", "name": "Specific attribution", "description": "Treat cultural identity, architectural resemblance and transmission as separate claims.", "questions": [ { "text": "What supports a narrower attribution such as Maya or a named regional tradition beyond visual resemblance?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "specific-attribution-q01" }, { "text": "Does the example represent participation in a tradition, exchange between traditions, later continuity or modern revival?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "specific-attribution-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "ensembles-and-movement", "name": "Ensembles and movement", "description": "Describe relationships among built masses, open spaces and routes through architectural settings.", "rationale": "An isolated pyramid or temple cannot represent the spatial organisation of plazas, compounds and associated structures.", "layers": [ { "id": "components-and-open-spaces", "name": "Components and open spaces", "description": "Record how platforms, buildings, courts and plazas form an ensemble.", "findings": [ { "id": "ensemble-composition", "name": "Ensemble composition", "description": "Make component relationships and the evidence behind typological labels explicit.", "questions": [ { "text": "How are temples, platforms, ballcourts, residential groups and plazas related within the documented ensemble?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "ensemble-composition-q01" }, { "text": "Which labels describe observable form, and which imply a use that remains to be established?", "kind": "definition", "id": "ensemble-composition-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "access-and-visibility", "name": "Access and visibility", "description": "Examine stairs, entrances, elevation changes and sightlines without assuming their social meaning.", "findings": [ { "id": "movement-and-gathering", "name": "Movement and gathering", "description": "Record how a particular building phase enabled movement, congregation and visual separation.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which routes connected plazas, elevated platforms and interior rooms during the same construction phase?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "movement-and-gathering-q01" }, { "text": "What evidence supports interpreting restricted entrances or elevated spaces as controls on participation?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "movement-and-gathering-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "construction-and-transformation", "name": "Construction and transformation", "description": "Represent material choices, structural techniques and the sequence through which architecture acquired its surviving form.", "rationale": "Visible monuments may combine several building episodes, while lost roofs and finishes can substantially change their interpretation.", "layers": [ { "id": "materials-and-structural-techniques", "name": "Materials and structural techniques", "description": "Document structural cores, facings, supports, roofing and finishes as distinct elements.", "findings": [ { "id": "documented-building-system", "name": "Documented building system", "description": "Ground technical descriptions in surviving fabric and excavation evidence.", "questions": [ { "text": "What evidence identifies the materials and assembly of foundations, platform fill, wall facings, roofs and plaster surfaces?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "documented-building-system-q01" }, { "text": "Where roofing is missing, what supports a proposed corbelled, timber-supported or other roofing system?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "documented-building-system-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "successive-building-phases", "name": "Successive building phases", "description": "Separate initial construction, enlargement, enclosure, repair and abandonment.", "findings": [ { "id": "phase-specific-form", "name": "Phase-specific form", "description": "Associate dimensions and spatial interpretations with a supported construction episode.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which stratigraphic relationships establish whether an earlier structure was enlarged, enclosed or replaced?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "phase-specific-form-q01" }, { "text": "Which stairs, rooms, surfaces and plaza levels were contemporary rather than combined by later exposure?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "phase-specific-form-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "use-and-meaning", "name": "Use and meaning", "description": "Evaluate evidence for habitation, ceremony, authority and relationships to landscape or sky.", "rationale": "Monumental form invites interpretations that must remain distinguishable from observed spatial and material evidence.", "layers": [ { "id": "activities-and-social-settings", "name": "Activities and social settings", "description": "Connect architectural spaces to documented activities and users.", "findings": [ { "id": "supported-use-interpretation", "name": "Supported use interpretation", "description": "Allow mixed and changing functions, including uncertainty in conventional temple or palace identifications.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which deposits, installations, wear patterns or contextual texts support residential, ceremonial or administrative use?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "supported-use-interpretation-q01" }, { "text": "Could the same space have supported different activities or users across its building phases?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "supported-use-interpretation-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "orientation-and-sacred-landscape", "name": "Orientation and sacred landscape", "description": "Assess proposed relationships to celestial events, mountains, caves, water and other landscape features.", "findings": [ { "id": "testable-alignment-claims", "name": "Testable alignment claims", "description": "Treat intentional orientation and symbolic meaning as hypotheses requiring more than geometric correspondence.", "questions": [ { "text": "What surveyed axis, horizon position and uncertainty support the proposed celestial or landscape alignment?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "testable-alignment-claims-q01" }, { "text": "What independent evidence distinguishes deliberate symbolic orientation from constraints of terrain, drainage or inherited layout?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "testable-alignment-claims-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "survival-and-responsible-interpretation", "name": "Survival and responsible interpretation", "description": "Track how preservation, restoration and representation affect architectural knowledge and proposed actions.", "rationale": "Exposed ruins and reconstructed monuments can conceal both missing architectural elements and modern interpretive choices.", "layers": [ { "id": "surviving-and-reconstructed-fabric", "name": "Surviving and reconstructed fabric", "description": "Separate ancient evidence from later interventions and inferred completions.", "findings": [ { "id": "visible-form-provenance", "name": "Visible form provenance", "description": "Require provenance for features used in comparisons or reconstructions.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which visible stairs, roof elements, wall profiles and surface finishes are ancient, repaired or reconstructed?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "visible-form-provenance-q01" }, { "text": "How would removing unsupported restorations or restoring documented missing elements change the interpretation?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "visible-form-provenance-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "conservation-and-representation-decisions", "name": "Conservation and representation decisions", "description": "Connect proposed documentation, interpretation or intervention to evidential limits and relevant authority.", "findings": [ { "id": "justified-next-action", "name": "Justified next action", "description": "Identify what can responsibly be represented or investigated and what requires further evidence or consultation.", "questions": [ { "text": "What additional documentation is needed before a missing temple superstructure, painted finish or earlier building phase can be represented?", "kind": "action", "id": "justified-next-action-q01" }, { "text": "Which custodians, relevant Indigenous communities and heritage authorities must inform the proposed interpretation or physical intervention?", "kind": "action", "id": "justified-next-action-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-confidence-notes", "name": "Check these first", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "This is a broad architectural category, not a single style; regional, chronological and functional distinctions are essential.", "Claims that particular buildings encode astronomical observations or cosmological schemes require site-specific evidence.", "The treatment of colonial and continuing Indigenous building traditions depends on the scope adopted; the category is commonly centred on pre-Hispanic architecture." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-confidence-notes-q01", "text": "Which of these check these first hold for the sense of Mesoamerican architecture this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-kinds", "name": "Kinds and varieties", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Temple platforms and stepped pyramids", "Palaces and administrative complexes", "Residential compounds and houses", "Ballcourts", "Plazas and ceremonial precincts", "Causeways and water-management structures" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds-q01", "text": "Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of Mesoamerican architecture this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Housing households and organising domestic production", "Accommodating ceremonies, offerings and burials", "Supporting government, elite residence and public assembly", "Providing settings for ballgames with social and ritual significance", "Organising settlement circulation and managing water" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of Mesoamerican architecture this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Rainwater penetration, erosion and vegetation growth can destabilise masonry and earthen construction.", "Earthquakes and ground movement can damage standing structures.", "Looting and undocumented excavation destroy architectural context.", "Incompatible repairs and speculative reconstruction can damage original materials and obscure evidence.", "Emphasis on monumental remains can distort understanding of domestic buildings and ordinary settlement life." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of Mesoamerican architecture this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ "Maya traditions include limestone masonry, corbel vaulting and, in some regions and periods, roof combs; these features are not universal across Maya buildings.", "Central Mexican traditions include courtyard compounds and monumental platforms; talud-tablero construction is especially associated with Teotihuacan but also occurs elsewhere.", "Oaxacan traditions include hilltop civic-ceremonial centres, terraces and elaborate tombs; Monte Alban and Mitla represent distinct architectural settings and histories." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of Mesoamerican architecture this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.", "evidence": [ { "name": "Maya architecture", "difference": "A culturally and geographically narrower tradition within Mesoamerican architecture." }, { "name": "Mesoamerican urbanism", "difference": "Focuses on settlement organisation, networks and urban life rather than primarily on buildings and constructed spaces." }, { "name": "Pre-Columbian architecture", "difference": "Encompasses architecture across the Americas before European colonisation, including traditions outside Mesoamerica." }, { "name": "Mesoamerican archaeology", "difference": "Studies the material evidence of Mesoamerican societies broadly; architecture is one category of that evidence." }, { "name": "Maya Revival architecture", "difference": "A later architectural movement borrowing selected ancient motifs rather than an ancient Mesoamerican building tradition." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of Mesoamerican architecture this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Which scholarly definitions best establish the geographic and chronological limits of this registry entry, especially for frontier contexts and post-conquest continuities?", "Which regional typologies permit useful comparison without treating one architectural tradition as the template for all Mesoamerica?", "How should the model compensate for uneven survival and documentation of domestic buildings, perishable structures and monumental centres?", "What evidential thresholds should distinguish supported interpretations of ritual use, political access and astronomical orientation from plausible hypotheses?", "How should living community knowledge and archaeological interpretations be represented when they offer different accounts of architectural meaning or appropriate treatment?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 11, "findings": 16, "questions": 26 } }