Like the Uruk Trough and the Narmer Palette from Egypt, it is one of the earliest surviving works of narrative relief sculpture, dated to c. 3200–3000 BC.

The bottom register displays naturalistic components of life, including water and plants, such as date palm, barley, and wheat.

[2] Inanna stands at the front portion of the gate surrounded by her richly filled shrine and storehouse (identifiable by two reed door poles with dangling banners).

[9] The vase was later returned during an amnesty to the Iraq Museum on 12 June 2003 by three unidentified men in their early twenties, driving a red Toyota vehicle.

As reported by a correspondent for The Times newspaper, As they struggled to lift a large object wrapped in a blanket out of the boot, the American guards on the gate raised their weapons.

Three feet high and weighing 600 lb intact, this was the Sacred Vase of Warka, regarded by experts as one of the most precious of all the treasures taken during looting that shocked the world in the chaos following the fall of Baghdad.

[12] A pair of comparison photographs, released by the Oriental Institute, Chicago, showed significant damage (as of the day of return, 12 June 2003) to the top and bottom of the vessel.