Egyptian Queen In Berlin -- Cairo Demands Clarification on Nefertiti Bust

Spiegel ^ | 2009 | msm -- with wire reports

[SunkenCiv]

"This time I mean it very seriously," is how Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, characterized his fresh demand for the bust of Queen Nefertiti, which German archaeologists brought home in 1913... Hawass has long called on Berlin to return the bust of Nefertiti, which sits in the city's Egyptian Museum, but SPIEGEL revealed in this week's edition of the magazine that an obscure document from 1924 charged the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt with "cheating" to secure the bust for Germany... The secretary of the German Oriental Institute reported in 1924 on a 1913 meeting between Borchardt and a senior Egyptian official. Egypt and Germany had an agreement to split antiquities found by Borchardt's team "à moitié exacte," or 50-50, but the secretary reported in his memo that Borchardt "wanted to save the bust for us." ...The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has possession of the bust and rejects any charge of cheating. The idea that the antiquities were not divided according to the rules in 1913 "is false," the foundation has claimed in a statement. Lefébvre, in other words, just overlooked the importance of the piece... Egypt has demanded it back from Germany for various reasons since the 1930s. It's now a star attraction at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, which receives half a million visitors per year.

Deutsche Presse Agentur

[SunkenCiv]

A year or few ago, Hawass was trying to get the bust "on loan"; also, a sculpture made as a temporary companion piece to the bust was claimed to be offensive to Islam or some such crap, and Hawass demanded that the bust be returned.

[SunkenCiv]

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[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

One can have sympathy for countries that want artifacts returned. However, given the instabilities-(of various kinds)-exhibited by Third World countries I don't think it is wise. For example, the Buddha destroyed by the Taliban.

[JoeProBono]

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

The Egyptians lost it once, they could lose it again. Leave where is.

[mass55th]

From what I understand, the Berlin museum’s excuse for refusing the loan to Egypt was that the bust was too fragile to be moved. Yet the same museum managed to move it for several hours from the glass case to pose it for photos on top of a bronze body torso. The bust was also recently CT scanned, but I haven’t been able to find out if it was moved out of the case to do that. The museum seems willing to move it for their own purposes, but not for it to be on loan. But frankly, the fragile excuse is just that...an excuse. They’re simply afraid that if Egypt got its hands on the bust, they’d never get it back.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, that’s what I was looking for... haven’t found the topic yet.

[SunkenCiv]

Moving it carefully by hand a few feet or into another room is quite different from moving it to and from a country hundreds of miles away, so I don’t find that to be merely an excuse. There was relief throughout the art and ancient history communities when the straw-lined box containing the bust reemerge in postwar Berlin (and unlike the gold of Troy didn’t vanish into Soviet booty archives).

But if it were made out of obsidian, the Germans could just tell Egypt, “forget it — you won’t return it” and would be right about that.

[SunkenCiv]

Not only lost it, but literally abandoned it. The bust was found in the remains of a workshop where it had been made, if memory serves.

[SunkenCiv]

I’d quibble a bit — wasn’t about being 3rd world; Islamic terrorists destroyed those Afghan Buddhas as part and parcel and policy of their sick faux religion.

[gridlock]

Simple... Divide the statue is two, and give half to each country...

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

In this case “Third World” was used as simply a shorthand term. Egypt, for example has a large fanatical religious group running around. Imagine if they obtain control, or bomb a museum ? Best keep the precious artifacts in Europe, for even in a war they were protected.

[SunkenCiv]

Quite right. There’s already a drive on to cover up representational art in Egypt, among other things, and tourists (as well as Egyptian Christians) have been murdered by terrorists (iow Moslems).

[SunkenCiv]

I think you’re onto something. Give the rear half to Egypt, and...