Schematically rendered eyeball with a protruding canthus from which the iris is missing. The back side is flat and roughly worked. The centre, where the iris would have been, is pierced through so that the eye would be nailed on a flat surface. The fire traces which are especially visible on the back side relate to the fire destruction of the Acropolis by the Persians in 480 BC.

Similar objects have been considered to connect to eyes that were usually painted and decorated both sides of combat and commercial vessels’ bow as apotropaic symbols. With regard to the stone eyes various suggestions have been put forward: they were placed on the bow sides of actual ships, they come from ritual vessels – such as the vessel on wheels pulled during the festival of the Anthesteria or the Panathenaia – or they were dedications, perhaps of the Trierarchs, nailed on wooden plaques symbolising a whole ship.