Abstract: Archaeological excavation is by nature a destructive process, because to investigate earlier underlying material one must first remove the later overlying evidence. It is therefore critical that each discovery is accurately documented before it is removed. But what happens when this process is not properly executed? Over fifty years of excavations at the monumental site of Gordion, in central Turkey, generated a haphazard and largely inaccurate corpus of documentation.The lack of accurate spatial representations of the site made it impossible to effectively interpret the material or to proceed with new fieldwork. This presentation will explore the unique challenges of contending with incomplete and faulty spatial data, and show how these challenges can be met with a historical approach that goes beyond the cartographic aspects by also focusing on the social milieu in which the data were produced.