This is an ostracon, with Coptic writing on one side and on part of the other.

It is from Egypt but the exact location is unknown. Scribes, schoolboys and artists used cheap (free) broken pieces of pottery or bits of limestone to practice on or for making drafts or copies of documents. They are known as ostracon (plural ostraca). This ostracon refers to the sacking of three men from the Coptic church. The bishop or abbot wrote giving instructions to the archpriest and the priest Apa John that Pesente and his sons Menas and Jacob were excluded from the clergy ‘for I have enquired and have found that they have trangressed the canons of the church’. This is an ostracon, with Coptic writing on one side and on part of the other. It is made from limestone. We do not know how old this object is.