On the Arrangement of the Writings

In the course of transmitting this Archive of archives, its Curators have found it useful to divide the over three hundred Writings it comprises into three textTypes:

primary texts, the personal narratives forming the fundamental materials of the Archives;
secondary texts, commentaries that annotate and elucidate the primary texts; and
tertiary texts, which a framework for the whole: lists, outlines, maps(!) and other affordances for finding a way in, through, and around the Writings

Primary Writings have been arranged throughout in descending order by Author, within a an overarching structure of historical eras called timeBands:

the most recent timeBand is designated as being of Unknown Provenance, since nothing is known of the transmission of the Archives since
the Age of the Scholar, a figure associated with the community of the Temple of Learning during its flourishing, and who rediscovered the Archives at some point after
the Age of Egderus, their first Curator, who, in addition to providing a vivid portrait of his own life and times, first gathered in one place
the Writings of The Ancients, denizens of a magnificent civilization that they themselves destroyed.

This arrangement somewhat resembles the cross-section of an archaeological excavation — more recent items appear near the top, older ones lie towards the bottom. (Within each Author's listing, however, the titles appear in their (deduced) order of composition. Consult scholion {in descending order} for a discussion of this controversial gambit.)

Secondary Writings are of two kinds, | Legomona and Scholia. Each Legomenon elucidates all the Writings of a given Author or group; each Scholion annotates a particula4 passage within a specific Writing. The long catalogs that list the Legomena and the Scholia are, as with the primaryTexts, ranked in descending order of their referents.

Tertiary Writings appear as needed throughout the Archives — for example, in the catalogs known as bookPlates (such as the bookPlate Egderus) as ancillary Writings such as the Preface, the Foreword, and the Afterword, act as general guides to help the reader understand how the Writings are related to one another and to get around among them.