Colorless glass with slight greenish tinge, bubbly with frosted surface and patches of thin iridescent film; cast, lathe-cut and polished. Rounded rim flares out gently from almost straight-sided form with shallow convex bottom, the carination between side and bottom is highlighted with two lathe-cut grooves; the bottom of the vessel retains an omphalos from which radiate 32 flutes with rounded tops; each flute is relief-cut and concave in cross section.

After the Assyrian kingdom was destroyed in 612 B.C., the casting of glass nearly disappeared. It was revived in the Achaemenid Empire during the fifth century. The Achaemenids were the rulers of Persia, and their glass industry focused on the manufacture of luxury table wares that imitated rock crystal. This type of broad, flat bowl, used for drinking or pouring libations, was widely used throughout the empire. The most luxurious of these objects were made of gold, rock crystal, silver, and glass. Fragments of two dozen cast and cut glass vessels, including a bowl of this kind, were found at Persepolis, one of the empire’s capitals. It is not certain when they were made, but it must have been before the destruction of the palace complex by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.