Among the minor results attending the excavations at Bismâya was the recovery of a vast number of terra-cotta vases, some entire, others only fragmentary.[155] They were found in graves, wells, and drains as well as in the various platforms contained in the mound, and in the plain itself. Between twenty-five and twenty-six feet below the surface two large burial urns were discovered, while at a depth of some thirty-four feet a smaller urn was brought to light. The earliest examples of pottery were found more than forty-four feet below the surface. In the larger vases and urns the clay appears to have been mixed with chopped straw,[156] the clay itself being as a rule of a yellowish brown colour, but according to Banks, the clay was burnt to a deep brown or black colour in the earliest times. The wheel seems to have been used at all periods, though not to the exclusion of hand-made pottery. One of the pre-Sargonic vases from this site was apparently formed by placing the clay on a flat surface, which the potter revolved with one hand while fashioning the clay into the required shape with the other hand; as Banks suggests, this may have been the origin of the potter’s wheel. The vessels from Bismâya vary in height from a little over an inch to just under thirty inches, and they exhibit every conceivable kind of shape. The surfaces of most of them are plain, but some are decorated with dots, squares, concentric circles and grooves. Two large vases are painted with the marks of their makers or owners in black, but these are regarded by Banks as post-Babylonian. Some of the vases are provided with covers, the cover of one of the funeral urns consisting in a kind of dish; sometimes, in the case of vases which were buried, a woven cloth was fastened over the mouth and sealed with clay. These cloths have of course long since perished, but the marks of the threads on the clay are still visible.[157] One vase is shaped like a boat, while another interesting terra-cotta object discovered on this site is a lamp terminating in the head of an ox.