Bell-metal bowl, with a rib formed from double bevelling framed by raised fillets encirling the top, above which is a vertical rim.

The external decoration:

The engraved and partly inlaid decorative patterns are arranged in a series of concentric bands leading down to the roundel on the underside.
From the top, around the vertical rim is a foliate scroll, on a hatched ground divided into six sections by undecorated roundels, and framed by two incised fillets.

Immediately below the rib, is a band of guilloche, and then the main epigraphic band with borders. The epigraphic frieze is divided into four sections, the intervals decorated with copper-inlaid rosettes which knot to form a cross pattern at their centre. The roundels' frames interlock with bands that frame the inscription.
The tall characters stand on a stippled ground of foliate scrolls. The Kufic script is plaited and animated with lions' heads, a dragons' heads and human faces.
Beneath, is a band of foliate scrolls with borders.

In the lower border twelve roundels, their circular frames interlacing with the two bands of the border and multiple knots separating them, enclose the signs of the Zodiac:
1. Aries: a goat in repose
2. Taurus: a humped bull walking to the left
3. Gemini: two human-faced birds
4. Cancer: a crab approaching a human-faced solar disc.
5. Leo: a feline looking back
6. Virgo: a cross-legged figure holding two ears of corn with outstretched hands
7. Libra: a cross-legged figure sitting behind the horizontal bar of a steelyard and steadying the chains holding two bowl-shaped trays
8. Scorpio: a scorpion, its tail curving to the right
9. Sagittarius: a siren shooting her bow at the monster-head which terminated her own knotted tail
10. Capricorn: an ibex with long curving horns, in repose
11. Aquarius: a man pulling a bucket out of a well. The chain goes over a pulley.
12. Pisces: two inverted curving fishes

On the underside a frieze of running animals frames, two hares and four dogs on a scrolling ground, frame a roundel enclosing symetrical knotted patterns.

The internal decoration:

On the upper rim six epigraphic sections are widely spaced with knotted foliate scrolls.
Below, an epigraphic frieze is framed by two plain bands edged with pearl borders and , enclosed by twin fillets. Below that, upward pointing interlocked arches are tipped with pointed bud and circular side lobes.
Further down, twelve engraved fishes framed by twin fillets swim against a stippled ground of foliate scrolls. Another epigraphic band frames the central rossette which in essence is a double Star-of-Solomon pattern.

Patina: predominantly ashy black, and pale lunar yellow hue of the alloy coming through on the much-rubbed underside and on the inner surface of the walls.