Bands of translucent blue, colorless, green, yellow-green, amethyst, opaque brick-red, opaque yellow, and opaque white glass, bubbly with thin milky-white iridescent film on interior, some slight pitting; preformed canes fused into three identical units, then sagged over former mold, fire-polished, upper parts lathe-turned. Cup with slightly concave tapering side, flat base; rounded rim finished with translucent blue band spirally wound with white, reheated and ground; concave tapering side, rounded at bottom; pattern is a series of ribbons roughly parallel to each other, repeated three times.

A new variety of mosaic glass was introduced in the first century B.C. It was “ribbon” mosaic, and the ornament consisted mainly of lengths (not slices) of canes arranged in geometric patterns. This concave-sided cup is a typical example. Many slices of just a few canes with different patterns were laid side by side on a flat surface and fused to form a disk. The disk was then placed on a convex mold and heated until the glass softened and slumped over the mold. The glassmaker then applied a softened spirally twisted cane to make the rim, and he finished the object by grinding and polishing. The fashion for brightly colored glass lasted until the mid-first century A.D., when colorless glass gained in popularity.