This is one of 18 fragments of the lid which Soane acquired with the sarcophagus in 1824 (the lid had been broken in antiquity by grave robbers: the fragments were found with the coffin in Seti's tomb in the Valley of the Kings).

Soane originally displayed the lid fragments beneath the sarcophagus, on the floor of the Sepulchral Chamber in the heart of the basement at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields..

There is some evidence that Soane himself may have experimented with conjectural reconstructions of the lid, as shown in watercolours by Charles James Richardson of 1825.

It is not known when they were moved from this position but Joseph Bonomi, Egyptologist and Curator of Sir John Soane's Museum 1861-78 decided to mount them in showcases (X73, X73.A, X73.B and X73.C) in his own suggested reconstructions of how the lid might have been originally assembled. Fragment X73.C.v is on the far right when the case is viewed from the front. Bonomi displayed his cases in an area of the basement called the 'New Chamber' at the back of No. 12 (today the Museum's store).

Also now in the collection are another two small fragments of the lid discovered amongst rubbish at the entrance to the tomb of Seti in 1906 and presented to the Museum by Professor Alfred Wiedemann, a German archaeologist (Associate Professor of Archaeology at Bonn University from 1891), in 1910 (X59).

Note: a note by George Bailey, the first Curator of Sir John Soane's Museum (1837-1860) records: 'In the 'Description of the House and Museum', written by Sir J. Soane, the number of pieces [of the lid] are stated to be nineteen, apparently from being misnumbered in the Sketch of the Sarcophagus by Mr. Gandy'. In fact, this misunderstanding as to the number of pieces of the lid came about because a fragment of a canopic jar chest (X74) was mistakenly included by Gandy amongst the lid fragments in his detailed drawings.

M470, sarcophagus
X59, lid