From The Fitzwilliam Museum, E.GA.4300.1943
New Kingdom limestone ostracon
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(from Wikipedia) "In Egypt, 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 nature such as messages, receipts, students exercises and notes: pottery shards, limestone flakes,[1] thin fragments of other stone types, etc., but limestone sherds, being flaky and of a lighter color, were most common. Ostraca were typically small, covered with just a few words or a small picture drawn in ink;[2]but the tomb of the craftsman Sennedjem at Deir el Medina contained an enormous ostracon inscribed with the Story of Sinuhe.[3] The importance of ostraca for Egyptology is immense. The combination of their physical nature and the Egyptian climate have preserved texts which in other cultures were lost, texts of a mundane nature,[4] which are often better witnesses of everyday life than literary treatises preserved in libraries." The Brunner-Traut note at the museum website says this particular ostracon is an artist's sketch. |
