An ostracon (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...
, usually broken off from a
vase
A vase ( or ) is an open container. It can be made from a number of materials, such as ceramics, glass, non- rusting metals, such as aluminium, brass, bronze, or stainless steel. Even wood has been used to make vases, either by using tree specie ...
or other
earthenware
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed Vitrification#Ceramics, nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids ...
vessel. In an
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
or
epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to
sherd
This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains.
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s or even small pieces of stone that have writing scratched into them. Usually these are considered to have been broken off before the writing was added; ancient people used the cheap, plentiful, and durable broken pieces of pottery around them as a convenient medium to write on for a wide variety of purposes, mostly very short inscriptions, but in some cases very long.
Ostracism
In
Classical Athens
The city of Athens (, ''Athênai'' ; Modern Greek: Αθήναι, ''Athine'' ) during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC) was the major urban centre of the notable '' polis'' ( city-state) of the same name, located in Attica, ...
, when the decision at hand was to banish or exile a certain member of society, citizen peers would cast their vote by writing the name of the person on the shard of pottery; the vote was counted and, if unfavorable, the person was
exile
Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...
d for a period of ten years from the city, thus giving rise to the term ''
ostracism
Ostracism (, ''ostrakismos'') was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often us ...
''. Broken pottery shards were also used for
anal hygiene
Anal hygiene refers to practices (anal cleansing) that are performed on the human anus, anus to maintain personal hygiene, usually immediately or shortly after defecation. Anal cleansing may also occur while showering or bathing. Post-defecation ...
. Scholars have suggested that shards (Pessoi) from a vote may have been re-used for this purpose, to curse the exiled individual by soiling their name.
Egyptian limestone and potsherd ostraca

Anything with a smooth surface could be used as a writing surface. Generally discarded material, ostraca were cheap, readily available, and therefore frequently used for writings of an
ephemeral
Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...
nature such as messages, prescriptions, receipts, students' exercises, and notes. Pottery sherds, limestone flakes,
[.] and thin fragments of other stone types were used, but limestone sherds, being flaky and of a lighter colour, were most common. Ostraca were typically small, covered with just a few words or a small picture drawn in ink; but the tomb of the craftsman Sennedjem at Deir el Medina contained an enormous ostracon inscribed with the
Story of Sinuhe
The ''Story of Sinuhe'' (also referred to as Sanehat or Sanhath) is a work of ancient Egyptian literature. It was likely composed in the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty after the death of Amenemhat I and the ascention of Senwosret I as sole ...
.
The importance of ostraca for
Egyptology
Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Ancient Greek, Greek , ''wiktionary:-logia, -logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian History of Egypt, history, Egyptian language, language, Ancient Egypt ...
is immense. The combination of their physical nature and the Egyptian climate have preserved texts, from the medical to the mundane, which in other cultures were lost. These can often serve as better witnesses of everyday life than literary treatises preserved in libraries.
Deir el-Medina Ostraca
The 91 ostraca found at
Deir el-Medina
Deir el-Medina (), or Dayr al-Madīnah, is an ancient Egyptian workmen's village which was home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th Dynasties of the New Kingdom of Egypt (ca. 1550–1080 BC). ...
provide a deeply compelling view into the inner workings of the
New Kingdom. These ostraca have shown medical and documentary records, some of which provide information on how water was provided, and how economic transactions were carried out. The extreme variety of information on ostraca that have been found presents information that would have been lost if not written down.
Like other Egyptian communities, the workmen and inhabitants of Deir el-Medina received care through a combination of
medical treatment
A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, ''treatment'' and ''therapy'', are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx.
As a rule, each therapy has indications an ...
,
prayer
File:Prayers-collage.png, 300px, alt=Collage of various religionists praying – Clickable Image, Collage of various religionists praying ''(Clickable image – use cursor to identify.)''
rect 0 0 1000 1000 Shinto festivalgoer praying in front ...
, and
magic. Nevertheless, the records at Deir el-Medina indicate some level of division, as records from the village note both a “
physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
” who saw patients and prescribed treatments, and a “scorpion charmer” who specialized in magical cures for scorpion stings.
The ostraca from Deir el-Medina also differed in their circulation. Magical spells and remedies were widely distributed among the workmen; there are even several cases of spells being sent from one worker to another, with no “trained” intermediary. Written medical texts appear to have been much rarer, with only a handful of ostraca containing
prescriptions, indicating that the trained physician mixed the more complicated remedies himself. There are also several documents that show the writer sending for medical ingredients, but it is unknown whether these were sent according to a physician's prescription, or to fulfill a
home remedy
Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used for maintaining health and treatin ...
.
Six people were assigned to Deir el-Medina as "water carriers" who were tasked to bring sacks of water to the village. Having a system in between a central
cistern
A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster.
Cisterns are disti ...
and door-to-door deliveries, the water carriers filled sacks and delivered them from the
floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...
to a central location in the village where each household could receive a quarter to a half of a sack which would amount to ninety six to one hundred and fifteen liters of water per house.
[McDowell 2002, 65–66] The typical household would have six residents, each would get fifteen to twenty liters of water for drinking. One ostracon describes how many of these deliveries were unfulfilled, where five people's rations were undelivered, totaling to four and three quarters sacks or three hundred and seventy-five liters of water gone undelivered. On multiple occasions, the citizens of Deir el-Medina attempted to dig a well, presumably due to their displacement toward the water carriers, but to no avail.
[ The first attempt was during the fifteenth year of Ramesses III where a hole was dug twenty-two meters into the ground, but with no luck. Before digging another, they established the water table sat at thirty-one and a half meter, and in a desperate attempt they dug twenty meters past that, to fifty-two meters, but again it was futile. With no water in the well, it was used as a dump where hundreds more ostraca were found.
Economics were unique in Deir el-Medina as transactions between people were closer to trades than modern transactions. Actual money would rarely change hands, as it was more of a measure of worth for an object and when making a deal, trades between people would consider both the worth of each ends of the trade and whether the items presented were needed. Conveniently, most ostraca found in Deir el-Medina were on economics and provide information on what these trades looked like. One such ostracon details a trade with one side offering an ox that was 120 Deben and the other offering two jars of fat, five smooth cloth tunics, one thin cloth kilt, and one hide which when put altogether were 130 Deben.
]
Saqqara Dream Ostraca
From 1964 to 1971, Bryan Emery excavated at Saqqara
Saqqara ( : saqqāra ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in the markaz (county) of Badrashin in the Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for ...
in search of Imhotep
Imhotep (; "(the one who) comes in peace"; ) was an Egyptian chancellor to the King Djoser, possible architect of Djoser's step pyramid, and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. Very little is known of Imhotep as a historical figur ...
's tomb; instead, the extensive catacombs of animal mummies were uncovered. Apparently, it was a pilgrimage site, with as many as 1½ million ibis
The ibis () (collective plural ibises; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...
birds interred (as well as cats, dogs, rams, and lions). This 2nd-century BC site contained extensive pottery debris from the site offerings of the pilgrims.
Emery's excavations uncovered the "Dream Ostraca", created by a scribe named ''Hor of Sebennytos.'' A devotee of the god Thoth
Thoth (from , borrowed from , , the reflex of " eis like the ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an African sacred ibis, ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine count ...
, he lived adjacent to Thoth's sanctuary at the entrance to the North Catacomb and worked as a "proto therapist", advising and comforting clients. He transferred his divinely inspired dreams onto ostraca. The Dream Ostraca are 65 Demotic
Demotic may refer to:
* Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language
* Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language
* Chữ Nôm
Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used t ...
texts written on pottery and limestone.[Reeves (2000).]
Biblical period ostraca
Famous ostraca for Biblical archaeology
Biblical archaeology is an academic school and a subset of Biblical studies and Levantine archaeology. Biblical archaeology studies archaeological sites from the Ancient Near East and especially the Holy Land (also known as Land of Israel and ...
have been found at:
* Arad, Israel
Arad ( ) is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It is located on the border of the Negev and the Judaean deserts, west of the Dead Sea and east of Beersheba. The city is home to a diverse population of in , including Ashkenazi and Se ...
, or Tel Arad
* Lachish
* Mesad Hashavyahu
* Ostraca House at Samaria
Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...
* Elah Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa
Khirbet Qeiyafa (), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Valley of Elah and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The ruins of the fortress were uncove ...
Additionally, the lots drawn at Masada
Masada ( ', 'fortress'; ) is a mountain-top fortress complex in the Judaean Desert, overlooking the western shore of the Dead Sea in southeastern Israel. The fort, built in the first century BCE, was constructed atop a natural plateau rising ov ...
are believed to have been ostraca, and some potsherds resembling the lots have been found.
In October 2008, Israeli archaeologist, Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
, discovered what he says to be the earliest known Hebrew text. This text was written on an ostracon sherd; Garfinkel believes this sherd dates to the time of King David
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament.
The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...
from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago. Carbon dating of the ostracon and analysis of the pottery have dated the inscription to be about 1,000 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...
. The inscription has yet to be deciphered, however, some words, such as king, slave, and judge have been translated.
The sherd was found about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem at the Elah Fortress in Khirbet Qeiyafa
Khirbet Qeiyafa (), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Valley of Elah and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The ruins of the fortress were uncove ...
, the earliest known fortified city of the biblical period of Israel.
See also
* Ostraca House
* Ostracon of Senemut and Djehuty
*Potsherd
This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains.
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* Satirical ostraca
* Soleto Map
* Monte Testaccio
Notes
References
*
*.
*. (Specifically, "1964–71: The Sacred Animal Necropolis, Saqqara"; and "1964–65: A Statue Finds Its Face".)
* .
* .
* (Tyche. Supplementband; 6).
External links
Deir el-Medina ostraca in the Petrie Museum
''The Ostracon''
the research publication of the Egyptian Study Society.
Prize Find: Oldest Hebrew Inscription
Biblical Archaeology Review
{{Authority control
Archaeological artefact types
Egyptian artefact types
Greek language
Papyrology
Writing media
Inscriptions by type
Textual scholarship
Ancient Egyptian technology
Egyptian inventions
Pottery