They Opened Them to Read Them
Opening, cleaning or reconstructing an object can erase the very context that made it interpretable. Archaeology and archive recovery built procedures around irreversibility before data work had version control.
archaeology
2 entries
Dating a Rumour by What It Picked Up
Archaeologists spent a century building methods to date a layer with no calendar attached. Folklorists have the same problem with stories. Market narratives have it with money attached.