The sculpture was broken up in the Middle Ages by stone robbers who quarried away blocks from the statue’s back slab and base, and hollowed a basin in the back of the throne. Subsequently, different pieces of the statue were found through excavati-
ons by different people at different periods of time and later sent to different storero-
oms where they were dispersed and lay forgotten.

In September 1998, around 250 fragments were gathered for study, conservation and reassemble at the conservation area of the Egyptian Museum. Each fragment was measured, drawn photographed and recor-
ded in files, before and during the cleaning. After almost a century of storage they had suffered from heavy soiling and sulphation.