How did they move this giant jar?

ALI Baba would have fitted quite snugly into this giant stone jar, with room for a few of the 40 thieves as well.

Tipping the scales at 737 kilos, the ancient vessel is not just one of the more striking exhibits in the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery – it's one of the heaviest too.

So moving the huge Grecian relic around has never been a job to be undertaken lightly.

As this 50-year-old Sentinel photograph illustrates, manoeuvring the jar from one place to another calls for teamwork, precision and muscle. Prior to this operation in 1958, the Ephesus Jar, as it is officially known, stood outside the old Hanley museum.

It was moved inside to protect it from the elements, especially from the damaging effects of frost.

That meant bringing in a crane to hoist the vase on to steel runners and then gently coaxing it into the building – a feat which was accomplished with only a fraction of an inch to spare. The great urn, which now stands in the foyer, was discovered in 1883 during excavations at the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

The temple was built at Ephesus, a Greek settlement in what is now part of Turkey, in the 4th century BC, at the time of Alexander The Great.

Approximately 5ft 6ins tall and 12ft 2ins in circumference, the jar is of a type made for storing grain, wine, water or oil.

"We know that when it was found in 1883 it still had a small amount of congealed oil in the bottom of it, so it's assumed that it was used for storing oil," said Cathy Shingler, who is interpretation officer at the museum.

After being unearthed by John Turtle Wood, the jar was sold to a Chichester brewer for £10. "It's said that it took 14 men to lift it on to the train which carried it from the site," says Cathy.

Although its origins are well-known, however, there is no record of how or when it came to the Potteries.

"It's a mystery," said Cathy, who says there is no known link between the Chichester brewer and Stoke-on-Trent.

All of which adds to the mystique of one of the city's most extraordinary antiquities.