THE most valuable item looted from the Baghdad Museum mysteriously reappeared yesterday when a trio of wellwishers returned the piece in a battered car.

The Sacred Vase of Warka, dating from 3200 BC, has been described as the “Mona Lisa” of Iraq’s artefacts. It was taken to the museum by three men, together with a variety of less valuable objects, on the back seat of an old car.

By chance, Pietro Cordone, Senior Adviser for Culture to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, happened to be visiting the museum and greeted the men.

He said: “This is one of the most important pieces from the Baghdad Museum and I am delighted it has been returned. I shared the concerns of the international museum community that the vase may not be retrieved. This is a reason for people all round the world to celebrate.”

The 5,200-year-old limestone bowl dates from Sumerian times, and was discovered by German archaeologists in 1940. It was one of 47 key items reported last week as missing from the museum’s collection.

The motives of the men who returned the item are unclear, but may be linked to rewards offered by the US-led interim government. It is also possible that the men did not know the value of the item, or were unable to find a buyer for it. A spokeswoman for the Coalition Provisional Authority said that the vase’s reappearance as astonishing. “It’s absolutely priceless,” she said. “It is the equivalent of someone returning the Mona Lisa. It is quite an extraordinary piece.”

Christopher Walker, senior curator in the department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum, said that it was probably the most important object to have been looted. “It is the single largest piece of art antiquity of the early third millennium, which gives us an insight into daily life at the time,” he said.

The return of the 4ft vase is a coup for the museum, which suffered heavy looting days after Baghdad came under American control. Curators initially feared that 170,000 objects had been stolen, although the number is now believed to be closer to 3,000.

Of the remaining objects, large numbers have been smashed. Other artefacts returned after an amnesty was declared have not been so well-treated. An Assyrian stone statue of King Shalmaneser III, dated about 800 BC, was returned in April, smashed into six pieces.

Mohammed Sabri, a prehistory specialist, blamed American forces for not protecting the museum. “They were late,” he said. “They should have been here from the first day. The Ministry of Oil was protected the first day, why not the museum?”

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