Probably the most distinctive feature of the box’s painted decoration is the lid’s two-headed eagle with large, tufted tail feathers. The eagle’s beaks hold long tendrils.

The form and decoration of the box are related to those on a number of somewhat larger reliquaries that were excavated in Kuqa on the Silk Road and have been dated to the 6th-7th century. A carbon-14 analysis of this box shows that it dates to the 3rd-5th century.