The tomb was discovered in 2003 in the east of Jingshang village in Daminggong township, Weiyang District, Xi'an, and excavated between June and October in the same year.

In his lifetime, Wirkak served as a sabao in the ancient province of Liangzhou, or today's city of Wuwei, a once-booming hub of international trade on the Silk Road.

Sabao (薩保) is a Chinese translation of the Sogdian term sārtpāw, meaning a "caravan leader", but later became the title of an administrator in charge of the international and foreign religious affairs of Central Asian immigrants who settled in China at the time.

The lintel and side posts of the stone gate are carved with interlocking grape and acanthus patterns, celestial musicians and lokapalas.

According to the American art historian Wu Hung, house-shaped sarcophagus originated in the western province of Sichuan during the Han period (202 BC – 220 AD), and this type of sarcophagus symbolizes some sort of ethnic connection, since it was not used by the indigenous Chinese who had lived in central and southern China, but was preferred by the Xianbei, Sogdian, and other people of Chinese or non-Chinese ancestry who had immigrated to northern China from the West.

[12] The four sides are carved with four-armed guardian deities, along with other Zoroastrian divinities and scenes of sacrifice, rising to heaven, banqueting, hunting and procession.

The French historian Étienne de La Vaissière argues that the iconography of these bas-reliefs representing a religious syncretism by blending Manichaean and Zoroastrian symbols in the funerary art.

But this is harder (still), that, without being aware (of it), a husband and wife see one another (for the first time) the same year, the same month, the same day, in the human world (and) also in paradise, (so that) the beginning of (their) life together (in each place) may be at the same period.

This stone tomb was made by Vreshman-vande, Zhimat-vande (and) Prot-vande, desiring a suitable place for (their) father (and) mother.The front (South) side of the sarcophagus is organised in strict formal symmetry around a large two-winged door.

From top to bottom, each outer panel contains a group of Sogdian musicians, a stylised window flanked by a pair of foreigners, and a half-human half-bird priest standing before the holy fire in a portable brazier.

[17] On the contrary, the depictions in the Tomb of An Jia (who was 24 years younger than Wirwak) show the omnipresence of the Turks, who were probably his main trading partners during his active life.

[19][20] The tomb included gold cups, jades, porcelains and toys, as well as a coin of the Sasanian Emperor Peroz I (459-483 CE).