Bottle, yellowish glass, with facet- and relief-cut decoration

The bottle has an “omphalos” (navel) decoration of concave roundels with a central, protruding boss. This distinctive form of decoration was not known in the Sasanian era and seems to have been invented by Muslim craftsmen who further developed Sasanian decorations with rows of facet-cut, circular sections. Omphalos decorations are found in the early Muslim period on glass with a variety of forms, and many glass objects with this decoration have been excavated in Nishapur. It was a simple pattern, made by cutting into the glass on a grinding wheel, but it required considerable practice to achieve a perfect, uniform pattern.