As with glyptic, it is only on Crete that stone vases are made in the Middle Bronze Age – it seems that neither mainland Greece nor the Cyclades produced them. Stone vases are now made in a wider range of materials: not only serpentine, but also breccias and limestone chosen for their colours or texture. Gabbro, a local stone of white crystals with fine green veining, also starts to be worked, as with a small cylindrical vase from Phaistos (AE1, fig. 152). Shapes continue like those of the preceding period (alabastrons, bird’s nest bowls) and it is often difficult assigning a precise date: a bird’s nest bowl from tomb B at Platanos (AE1, fig. 153), with an incised star as decoration, belongs to the Early Minoan (EM) III tradition.