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archaeology:
As the world celebrates the centennial of its discovery, Nevine El-Aref asks who actually owns the iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti?
It seems that there is no foreseeable resolution to the long conflict between Germany and Egypt over ownership of the 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, wife of the monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaten. Now, a century after its discovery, the dispute over ownership is stepping from one level to another, and with no concrete solution in sight it has become one of the best-known international cases of stolen antiquities that Egypt wants back.
The magnificent painted stucco and limestone bust of Nefertiti was discovered in 1912 by an archaeological team led by German Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt and sponsored by the German Oriental Society (DOG), the treasurer of which was the German Jewish wholesale merchant James Simon. The bust was unearthed while the German team was excavating the workshop of the ancient Egyptian court sculptor Tuthmosis in Akhenaten’s capital city of Al-Amarna. Along with it were other unfinished artefacts, including a polychrome bust of the queen and plaster casts representing other members of Akhenaten’s family and entourage. It meant that bust, as well as the other objects, never went on display and was damaged during its creation or was used as a model and was never indented for view.
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Sheddiq went on to say that, according to the documented evidence and Borchardt’s diary, he noted the importance of the artefact on the first day of the discovery. This should have led to his placing it in the collection of the Egyptian Antiquities Service according to the Antiquities Law at that time, No. 14 of 1912. The rules of sharing applicable at that time stipulated that repeated and common spoils of any new discovery be split between the Egyptian antiquities authority and the foreign mission concerned, while unique and distinguished artefacts must be placed in the Egyptian share.
Borchardt either did not declare the bust, or hid it under less important objects. Or it is possible that the Egyptian authorities failed to recognise its importance — as the Germans claimed — when Borchardt described the bust in the division protocol as a gypsum statue of an unknown princess of the royal family.
More here.
