An ostracon is a flake of limestone or a potsherd used as an inexpensive writing or drawing surface. This one carries a hieroglyphic text and an image of a coiled serpent, dedicated by a man named Amenkhau to Meretseger, "She Who Loves Silence", the cobra goddess who was believed to live on the pyramid-shaped peak above the Valley of the Kings.
The workmen of Deir el-Medina worshiped Meretseger as the guardian of the Theban necropolis, and many of their small votive stelae and ostraca ask for her forgiveness and protection.
