# a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself

The scraping scratches the skin to lessen the itch.

# sat down in the middle of ashes

This probably refers to a place where trash and garbage were dumped and perhaps burned. Sitting in such a place was a sign of deep mourning. Alternate translation: "sat on the trash heap" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-euphemism]] and [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/translate-symaction]])