a fragment of clay pottery
a piece of pottery with writing on it
a limestone or pottery flake used to sketch, practice writing, or make notes
A limestone flake or pottery sherd used as a surface for writing or sketching. RETURN TO GLOSSARY INDEX
Potsherd or limestone flake used by scibes for practicing to write, and as a cheap and easily available medium for letters, daily documents and quick sketches. Plural - ostraca.
(plural ostraca) : a piece of broken pottery with something written on it. Pottery was a handy and durable medium for making short notes or sending messages. Because it is so durable, archaeological excavations often turn up hundreds of ostraca.
From the Greek word meaning; "potsherd". A chip or shard of limestone or pottery used as a writing tablet. Ostraca are known from all periods. but 19th and 20th-Dynasty examples are the most common. The texts can be anything from a simple shopping list to drafts of hieroglyphic inscriptions. PANTHEON . . All the gods, collectively as a group.
An ostracon (Greek: ostrakon, plural ostraka) is a piece of pottery (or stone), usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In archaeology, ostraca may contain scratched-in words or other forms of writing which may give clues as to the time when the piece was in use. The word is derived from Greek ostrakon, meaning a shell or a shard of pottery used as a voting ballot.