Documented
A dated document says so, or it can be seen and measured in a source.
What we know
What we know about each house, and how we know it
For each house we separate what can be seen in a document, what we deduce from photos, shadows and plans, and what we do not yet know. We say so with a word, a symbol and a border, and always with the source.
Three levels of evidence
Never percentages · always the source
Documented, inferred, hypothetical
Every piece of information about every house (its footprint, its height, its roof, its façade) carries one of these three levels and the sources it comes from. We do not give percentages of certainty: we say what can be seen, what can be deduced and what is not known.
Inferred
We deduce it from photos, shadows and plans, using a method we explain in each record.
Hypothetical
No source shows it. We use the most likely option and say so.
The level always comes with its word, its symbol and its border (solid, dashed or dotted), never with a colour alone:
Documented Inferred Hypothetical
Two summaries per house
Shape and appearance
A house can have a well-measured footprint and a colour with no source at all. That is why each house has two summaries, not one:
Shape
Where the house stands and what size and shape it is.
- Position
- Footprint
- Storeys
- Eaves height
- Roof
- Arcade
Appearance
What it looks like from the outside.
- Façade
- Façade colour
- Doors and windows
- Balconies
Each summary takes the lowest level in its group: if the footprint and the height are inferred but the roof is hypothetical, the shape is hypothetical. That way the summary never promises more than we know.
For example, Caserón del portal de arco (MQN-BLD-0434):
- Shape
- Inferred
- Appearance
- Hypothetical
Where the village stands today
Data as of 9 October 2026
All 541 houses, level by level
This is where the two summaries and each feature stand today. They change every time an area is checked against its photos: what is hypothetical today may become inferred, and the other way round if a reading is corrected.
| Level | Shape | Appearance |
|---|---|---|
| Documented | 0 | 0 |
| Inferred | 18 | 0 |
| Hypothetical | 523 | 541 |
| Houses | 541 | 541 |
| Feature | Documented | Inferred | Hypothetical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Footprint | 0 | 530 | 11 |
| Storeys | 0 | 55 | 486 |
| Eaves height | 0 | 87 | 454 |
| Roof | 0 | 31 | 510 |
| Façade | 0 | 0 | 541 |
- Shape: documented
- Shape: inferred
- Shape: hypothetical
Appearance
Why the appearance is still hypothetical in every house
The appearance is the skin of the house: its façade, its colour, its doors and windows and its balconies. For now the model applies it using general rules for the village, not house by house: each façade is finished in cal, revoco claro, revoco color tierra, or revoco ocre depending on the type of house, and the doors and windows follow a typical layout.
So far, reading the photos area by area has focused on the shape: the footprint, the heights and the roofs. The photos show many façades, and they will be read house by house. In the meantime, the appearance remains a hypothesis, and we say so.
Colour has one more rule: a colourised photo does not count as a source.
Sources
How sources are counted
Each piece of information cites its sources by their identifier, the same in the record and in the catalogue: a document, such as MQN-SRC-ORTO1956 (Ortofoto del vuelo americano, serie B), or a photograph, such as MUNI_ajuntament_007 (Colección municipal de Mequinenza) or T1A_p002_1 («Recuerdos de papel»).
- A house’s number of sources counts the different sources behind its documented or inferred information: a photo used for both the height and the roof counts once.
- Hypothetical information has no source. If a hypothetical piece of information follows a general rule for the village (for example, the shape of the roofs), the record cites the photos that rule is based on as a ‘reference’, and they do not count as sources for the house.
- More sources do not raise the level on their own: what counts is what they show and the method used to read them. A single photo taken almost head-on can be enough to infer a height.
- Photographs are cited with no image or caption until there is permission to publish them: the caption may include people’s names.
- 2 references in the records are still to be identified: they are working notes that have to be turned into sources, and the catalogue shows them as they are.
Today the records cite 43 sources: 8 documents and 35 photographs. See the catalogue of sources.
Colour
Colourising is not evidence
A colourised black-and-white photo, whether coloured by hand at the time or with AI today, shows colours that nobody measured. That is why:
- a façade’s colour does not go up a level because of a colourised photo;
- the colour renders on this website carry the label ‘Interpretive colouring’;
- a black-and-white photo will be shown in black and white, once we have permission to show it.
Artificial intelligence
AI is never a source
An image generated, colourised, enlarged or retouched with AI can invent details: the letters on a sign, a window, a few roof tiles. That is why it is never used to measure anything or to decide the shape of a house, and if it is ever shown, it is labelled as such.
The weathered material textures (stone, roof tiles, plaster, cobbles) in the viewer and in some images are, however, AI-generated: they are a visual finish, not evidence, and the image labels say so. The renders of each house use free (CC0) textures, with the proposed colour. More details in How it was made.