What does ostrakon mean?
An ostrakon is a fragment of ancient Greek pottery, especially a potsherd bearing a person's name and used as a voting ballot. The custom is best known from ostracism, a process in which citizens assembled at a gathering and voted to expel a prominent individual from Athens for ten years. Because each vote was recorded by inscribing a name on a sherd, large quantities of these objects survive in the archaeological record. The term also refers more generally to inscribed pottery or bone fragments from the classical Greek world. Although an ostrakon may sound like a minor technical artifact, it provides unusually direct evidence of how political decisions were made in antiquity. The related English words ostracism and ostracize preserve this history: the former names the ancient voting procedure, while the latter now generally means to exclude someone from a group or institution.
nounAn ancient Greek potsherd inscribed with a person's name and used as a voting ballot. By extension, an inscribed fragment of pottery or bone from the classical Greek world.
- An ancient Greek potsherd bearing an inscribed name and used as a ballot, especially in an ostracism vote.
- More broadly, an inscribed fragment of pottery or bone from the classical Greek world, valued as an archaeological object.
"The museum displayed several ostraka bearing the names of citizens who had been ostracized."
"Archaeologists discovered an ostrakon inscribed with the name of a prominent citizen."
"The collection includes pottery fragments and ostraka from the classical period."
The standard plural; ostrakons is also used, especially when stressing that each object is an individual shard rather than the total vote.
"The broken pieces were later identified as ostraka inscribed with citizens' names."
Ancient Athens practiced democracy by democracy one potsherd at a time: citizens wrote a rival's name on an ostrakon, and enough votes could send that person into exile.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does ostrakon come from?
The English word comes from Ancient Greek ὀστράκον (ostrakon), meaning a potsherd or fragment used as a ballot. It is generally connected with ὀστέον (osteon), meaning bone, although the Greek term came to be used especially for pottery sherds inscribed for voting. Greek ostrakize, meaning to vote for someone's exile by ostracism, was the source of the English derivatives ostracize and ostracism.
Related word forms
How ostrakon is actually used
The word is primarily historical and archaeological. Its standard plural is ostraka, although ostrakons is also used when referring to individual artifacts without emphasis on the ancient voting function. In discussions of ancient voting, the singular name of the selected candidate and the Greek word for the vote, ostracism, are related through the practice of writing citizens' names on pottery shards.
Easily confused with ostrakon
An ostrakon is an ancient Greek voting shard, whereas to ostracize means to exclude someone from a community or position, originally by a vote recorded on such shards.