This vessel belongs to a rare class of glazed ceramic rhytons with female heads and animal-shaped spouts. The upper part is in the form of a vase with one handle (now lost). It appears as a tall bulbous crown above the head (made from two half-molds), which displays puffy cheeks, thickly lined eyes and brows, and small lips. The richly patterned "melon" coiffure is embellished by a diadem of wheat stalks with a band that includes a palmette, a crescent and star, and a rosette. Below a necklace the vessel tapers into a bull's head with a pouring hole at the mouth.

The diadem motifs may identify the head as that of the Mesopotamian goddess Nana, daughter of the moon god and sister of the sun god. This nature and astral deity—who is referred to in texts from the Temple of Marduk, Babylon, as "the power over princes and the scepter of kings"—was represented in Parthian and Kushan art and widely worshiped in Asia. The vessel, a combination of an eastern Mediterranean face pot and an Iranian animal-head rhyton, may be compared to two similar rhytons of unknown provenance with Sasanian-style relief decoration (British Museum, London, and Cincinnati Art Museum) and to a molded female face on a late Parthian coffin lid from Nippur (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia).