Ostrakon - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IX, p. 286

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

OSTRAKON - O. with the names of Maximian and Diocletian (12 June 290).

---

OSTRAKON (plural: ostraka). — Shards of amphorae and vessels, used on their convex side as writing surfaces, generally for voting (the Athenian "ostracism" is well known), for receipts, brief communications, and exceptionally for literary texts. They have been found in Rome (Testaccio), Alexandria, and especially in Upper Egypt (Thebae, Pathyris, Edfu, Elefantina, Ombos) and in Nubia (Talmis, Dekka); the writing is generally Greek or Coptic, more rarely Latin.

Besides mostly financial documents concerning Egyptian churches or monasteries, some non-documentary texts are also found on Egyptian ostraka: the most substantial contribution in this regard is provided by W. E. Crum (see bibliography) in Coptic ostraca with Ps. 24, 50, 103, 117, with the fragment of Lk. 1:28, 42 and liturgical texts in honor of the Virgin; elsewhere in published ostraka by J. G. Tait (see bibliography, p. 145) one reads Jn. 2:12-14; hymns to the Virgin in an ostrakon from Aberdeen, perhaps of the 6th century (Paderb. 4), and in one from Cambridge (J. G. Tait, pp. 117-18); at Aberdeen there is also a text on an ostraka that narrates the Baptism of Jesus in dialogic form (Paderb. 3, 6th century); a Christian prayer is written on an ostraka from Tuna el-Gebel (Hermopolis; cf. Etudes de papyrologie, 3 [1936], p. 106, n. 26).

For Hebrew ostraka, see LACHIS; SAMARIA.

BIBL.: U. Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka aus Ägypten und Nubien, 2 vols., Leipzig-Berlin 1899; W. E. Crum-E. F. Brightman, Coptic ostraca from the collections of the Egypt exploration fund, the Cairo museum and others, London 1902; H. R. Hall, Coptic and greek texts of the christian period from ostraka, stelae etc. in the British Museum, ibid. 1905; Theban ostraca, ed. H. Thompson-J. G. Milne, London-Oxford 1913; F. and W. Preisigke, Die Prinz Joachim Ostraka, Strasbourg 1914; H. G. Evelyn White, Graeco Roman ostraca from Dahka Nubia, in Classical Review, 33 (1919), pp. 49 ff.; P. Viereck, Ostraka aus Brüssel und Berlin, Berlin-Leipzig 1922; P. Viereck, Griechische und griechische demotische Ostraka der Universitäts- und Landes-Bibliothek zu Strassburg im Elsass, I. Texte, Berlin 1923; The mastery of Epiphanius at Thebes, II, Coptic ostraca and papyri, ed. W. E. Crum-E. G. Evelyn White, New York 1926; J. G. Tait, Greek ostraca in the Boylston Library at Oxford and other various collections, I, London 1930; L. Amundsen, Ostraca Osloensia, greek ostraca (Norwegian collections), Oslo 1933; id., Greek ostraca in the University of Michigan collection, I. Texts, Ann Arbor 1935; Cl. Préaux, Les ostraca grecs de la collection Charles Edwin Wilbour au Musée de Brooklyn, New York 1935.

Antonio Messineo

Aristide Calderini