Pot-ostratie! (pottery and ostracism)

When learning about ostracism in ancient Athens, I was dumb stuck to how a group of people could banish someone for ten years. I went ahead and did some research on line. First the the person who would be ostracized was seen to be threatening the state in some way. Ostracism was not only practiced in Athens, but also in Argos, Megara, and Miletus. Once the ten years of ostracism was paid the ostracized could return to their property and status. The first recorded uses of ostracism was on a man named Hipparchus, under the thought that he was following a tyrannical rule. The procedure used to ostracize someone was a voting process. the votes were cast on shards of pottery. The name that appeared the most on the pottery was then ostracized. I was also interested if there were any historical artifacts of these shards of pottery and they are. Here are some pictures.