3,500 Years Ago, An Egyptian Artist Drew This Sparrow

It's in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dated to 1479-1458 BCE.

Wrote archaeologist Alison Fisk:

"This may have been a practice drawing of the sparrow hieroglyph which was used for words meaning 'small,' 'poor,' or 'bad.' The Egyptian artists who decorated tombs and temples drew sketches jotted down notes on the plentiful limestone flakes which were by-products of temple and rock-cut tomb construction. Egyptologists refer to them as 'ostraca' (singular: ostracon)."