Nefertiti: Sparring Over Berlin's 'Mona Lisa'

Aug. 21, 2011— -- Germany and Egypt have long been at odds over the return of the famous bust of Nefertiti. Now documents found in archives show that the conflict was started by a Frenchman who had fought the Germans in World War I and considered them to be swindlers. He may have been right.

This queen owes her immortality to a gifted artist. The bust he fashioned out of gypsum and limestone some 3,350 years ago became an eternal monument to her beauty. As realistic as the image is, it has the radiance of a goddess. "It's no use describing it; you have to see it!" said the German archeologist who unearthed the bust of the Egyptian queen in the desert sand almost a century ago.

Hardly anyone is familiar with the name of the sculptor, Thutmose, but the bust is of the famous Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile, Great Royal Wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. And thanks to a coincidence, a minor detour of history, her likeness is not on display in a museum in her native Egypt, but in Berlin. Or was it not a coincidence at all, but rather fraud?

For the Germans, Nefertiti is their perceived property, a national cultural treasure, their entry in the canon of the sublime. The bust represents many things, but most of all it stands for both the splendid epoch of ancient Egypt and the age of spectacular digs around the beginning of the last century, when Europe's archeologists set out for the Nile. Today, she is the star of the Neues Museum in Berlin's Mitte district, which was reopened in 2009. There, the bust is prominently displayed in the middle of a domed hall, bathed in soft light and admired by thousands every day. Of the more than 1 million visitors the museum attracts each year, most come to see the bust of Nefertiti, as if they were making a pilgrimage to admire this queen of the Nile. Nefertiti is Berlin's Mona Lisa, except that she is perhaps even more beautiful, more mysterious and more magnificent.

Fight Over the Queen is Far From Over

Of course, the Egyptians would prefer to have this heirloom of their magnificent history in their own country. Egyptian experts on antiquity have repeatedly asked that the bust of the queen be repatriated, especially in recent years. And although the government in Cairo has not intervened in the dispute, it seemed to have no objection when Zahi Hawass, the country's former minister of state for antiquities, demanded the return of the bust. Hawass is quick to point out that even the Nazis were once almost persuaded to send Nefertiti back to Egypt.

During his time in office, the relentless Hawass managed to bring a few relics of antiquity back to Egypt, but not the bust of Nefertiti. Then came the revolution and Hawass lost his position. But the fight over the queen is far from over, just as the fight over all the other antiquities from Egypt that were once distributed around the world continues today.

The National Museums in Berlin, as well as the German Foreign Ministry, ward off all claims with the argument that everything was done properly during the excavation in December 1912. But what exactly was considered proper in those days?

Now that debate is about to be renewed thanks to a study devoted to the origins of the controversy that is being published this week. Based on original documents, it tells a part of the story that was largely unknown until now. Bénédicte Savoy, a French professor of art history living and teaching in Berlin, discovered a "Nefertiti file" in Paris, which led her to write the book. In the preface, she acknowledges that it was the Arab Spring that inspired her. Savoy writes that she felt she "owed this story to the Egyptians, a story in which they have been overlooked in every respect."*