Glass and gold foil; star canes with opaque yellow centers, opaque white rays imbedded in a deep blue matrix, irregular chips of opaque white and colorless glass sandwiching gold foil, some pitting, possibly some recent surface grinding; mosaic glass or millefiori technique, later tooled and lathe-polished. (a) Inverted Pyriform body slopes in a slightly convex profile toward point which has been tooled and extended to form a short truncated conical foot, shoulder has been ground and beveled to receive the upper section; two holes just below top are opposite each other and correspond to holes in the shoulder; the body retains chips of white glass as well as gold glass chips whereas the top contains only gold glass chips. The neck and base have been tooled and twisted after the form was cast, the rods and chips are in a swirling pattern; chips of gold glass can be seen in this pattern while canes in the foot remain undisturbed. (b) Rim rounded by tooling and reheating flared out slightly from long cylindrical neck, wall spreads out to gently sloping shoulder, lip is beveled with concave profile to fit into body; shoulder preserves two holes, opposite each other, two more holes below rim on neck.

Another notable achievement of Hellenistic glassmakers was the production of cast mosaic vessels with sections of preformed canes. A cane consists of thin, monochrome rods bundled together and fused to form a polychrome design that is visible when seen in cross section. It can be cut into slices that are arranged to form intricate patterns. Although earlier craftsmen had made glass mosaic inlays and plaques, the use of mosaic canes in the manufacture of vessels was virtually unknown until the late third century B.C. The jar shown here was made in two parts, presumably because it was difficult to fashion tall, narrow objects in mosaic glass. The opposed pairs of perforations in the upper neck and at the shoulder show that this object originally had two handles and was a miniature amphora.