Hi everyone, thanks so much for your help so far. It looks as if something is missing from the lid because of the two individual pin type attachments. It doesn't have any holes in it, or it doesn't have any type of smell to it other that a metallic type smell.. What I think is intriguing is the etching in the brass and the contruction looks hand tooled. The connectors for the chains look like cotter pin style to attach the chains and they used the same type connector to perform as a latch to secure the lid on the front. I included some more photo's, maybe they will help.