Ostrakon: Perbedaan antara revisi

 

Di [[Atena]], [[Yunani]], pada zaman kuno, masyarakat melakukan voting dengan menulis atau mengukir nama seseorang pada potongan keramik, misalnya untuk mengasingkan atau mengusir seseorang dari kelompok masyarakat itu. Setelah voting dihitung dan suara terbanyak menolak yang bersangkutan, maka orang tersebut diasingkan selama 10 tahun dari kota itu, sehingga menghasilkan istilah ''[[:en:ostracism|ostracism]]'' (ostrakisme).

== Ostrakon Mesir ==

[[Image:Heratic script limestone.jpg|right|thumb|210px|One of four official letters to [[Vizier (Ancient Egypt)|vizier]] Khay copied onto a [[limestone]] ostracon, in Egyptian [[Hieratic]] ]]

 

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, prescriptions, receipts, students exercises and notes: pottery shards, limestone flakes,<ref name="Donadoni">{{Citation |editor-last=Donadoni |editor-first=Sergio |title=The Egyptians |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |year=1997 |isbn=0-226-15555-2 |page=78 }}.</ref> thin fragments of other stone types, etc., but limestone [[sherd]]s, 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;<ref>{{Citation |last=Klauck |first=Hans-Josef |title=Ancient Letters And the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis |publisher=Baylor University Press |year=2006 |isbn=1-932792-40-6 |page=45 }}.</ref> but the tomb of the craftsman Sennedjem at Deir el Medina contained an enormous ostracon inscribed with the [[Story of Sinuhe]].<ref name="Donadoni" />

The importance of ostraca for Egyptology 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.<ref>{{Citation |first=Michel |last=Chauveau |title=Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra: History and Society Under the Ptolemies |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, NY |year=2000 |isbn=0-8014-8576-2 |page=7 }}.</ref> These can often serve as better witnesses of everyday life than literary treatises preserved in libraries.