<P> The Warka Vase is a carved alabaster stone vessel found in the temple complex of the Sumerian goddess Inanna in the ruins of the ancient city of Uruk, located in the modern Al Muthanna Governorate, in southern Iraq . 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 . </P> <P> The vase was discovered as a collection of fragments by German Assyriologists in their sixth excavation season at Uruk in 1933 / 1934 . The find was recorded as find number W14873 in the expedition's field book under an entry dated 2 January 1929, which read "Großes Gefäß aus Alabaster, ca . 96 cm hoch mit Flachrelief" ("large container of alabaster, circa 96 cm high with flat - reliefs"). The vase, which showed signs of being repaired in antiquity, stood 3 feet, 1⁄4 inches (1 m) tall . Other sources cite it as having been a slightly taller 106 cm, with an upper diameter of 36 cm . It is named after the modern village of Warka--known as Uruk to the ancient Sumerians . A plaster cast was made of the original and this reproduction stood for many decades in room 5 of the Near - Eastern Museum in Berlin (Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin), Germany . </P>

Carved vessel with detail of the goddess inanna