A delicate vessel, not uncommon in levels of the seventh century B.C. is the small thrown goblet (e.g. ND.1839, Plate XLI No. 1), generally some 8–10 cm. in height, with a fairly high-shouldered belly, and a wide neck of almost cylindrical form, splaying slightly out towards the everted lip. The neck accounts for between one third and one half of the total height of the vessels. The bases of these goblets show that they were commonly pinched off a clay matrix, though a fragment of fine drab ware (T.W. 53, Room 18) found in the lowest sub-level of 4, which probably belonged to a pot of this kind, exhibits a small ring-foot thrown from excess clay at the base. This pot must have been inverted and re-centred on the wheel—no easy task with this sort of fabric; its date is probably a few decades before Assur-bani-pal.

A particularly interesting feature of some of the more delicate goblets is the pattern of rows of fingertip indentations round the outside of the belly of the pot. The original reason for the development of this ornament, with its particular spacing, was clearly an inescapable practical fact. For a pinched-off pot has to be caught in the potter's free hand as it is finally separated from the clay matrix; and the makers of these goblets used to catch them with their fingertips, which indented the fine, slimy body of which they were made. The potters then added further indentations to make a pattern. The original set of finger impressions can be identified on complete pots by fitting them to one's own finger-grip.