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Ancient sculpture from Egypt

The Nefertiti Bust is a painted stucco coated limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. It is on display in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. The work is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by Thutmose because it was found in his workshop in Tell el Amarna, Egypt. It is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt. Nefertiti has become one of the most famous women of the ancient world and an icon of feminine beauty. A German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt discovered the bust in 1912 in Thutmose's workshop. Despite provisions that prohibited any items of great archaeological value from leaving Egypt, Borchardt concealed the nature of the bust by covering it in a layer of clay and smuggled it out of the country in 1913. It has been kept at various locations in Germany since its discovery, including the cellar of a bank, a salt mine in Merkers Kieselbach, the Dahlem museum, the Egyptian Museum in Charlottenburg and the Altes Museum. Today, Egypt continues to demand the repatriation of the bust, whereas German officials and the Berlin Museum assert their ownership by citing an official protocol, signed by the German excavators and the French led Egyptian Antiquities Service of the time.

Nefertiti (meaning "the beautiful one has come forth") was the 14th century BC Great Royal Wife (chief consort) of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Akhenaten initiated a new monotheistic form of worship called Atenism dedicated to the Sun disc Aten. "on the eastern side of the Nile, about ten kilometres [6 miles] north of Amarna", in today's Al Minya Governorate Nefertiti may have become a pharaoh in her own right for a short time after her husband's death. The bust of Nefertiti is believed to have been crafted about 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose.

The bust was found on 6 December 1912 at Amarna by an archaeological team funded by the German Oriental Company (Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft – DOG), a voluntary association founded by one of the wealthiest men in Prussia, James Simon, Borchardt's diary provides the main written account of the find; he remarks, "Suddenly we had in our hands the most alive Egyptian artwork. You cannot describe it with words. You must see it." While Philipp Vandenberg describes the theft as "adventurous and beyond comparison", Time magazine lists it among the "Top 10 Plundered Artifacts". Borchardt deceptively showed Egypt's French chief antiques inspector, Gustave Lefebvre, a photograph of the bust "that didn't show Nefertiti in her best light", sitting in a dimly lit room, covered in clay, and wrapped in a box to conceal its true value. Borchardt also deceptively claimed the bust was made of gypsum, instead of limestone, to mislead Lefebvre. The German Oriental Company deflects the blame onto the negligence of Lefebvre and points out that the bust was at the top of the exchange list and says the deal was done fairly. The ears have suffered some damage. According to David Silverman, the bust reflects the classical Egyptian art style, deviating from the "eccentricities" of the Amarna art style, which was developed in Akhenaten's reign. The exact function of the bust is unknown, though it is theorized that the bust may be a sculptor's modello to be used as a basis for other official portraits, kept in the artist's workshop.

When the bust was first discovered, no quartz to represent the iris of the left eyeball was present as in the other eye, and none was found despite an intensive search and a then significant reward of £1000 being put up for information regarding its whereabouts. Borchardt assumed that the quartz iris had fallen out when Thutmose's workshop fell into ruin. The missing eye led to speculation that Nefertiti may have suffered from an ophthalmic infection and lost her left eye, though the presence of an iris in other statues of her contradicted this possibility. Dietrich Wildung proposed that the bust in Berlin was a model for official portraits and was used by the master sculptor for teaching his pupils how to carve the internal structure of the eye, and thus the left iris was not added. Gardner's Art Through the Ages and Silverman present a similar view that the bust was deliberately kept unfinished. In 2006, Dietrich Wildung, director of Berlin's Egyptian Museum, while trying a different lighting at the Altes Museum, where the bust was then displayed, observed wrinkles on Nefertiti's neck and bags under her eyes, suggesting the sculptor had tried to depict signs of aging. A CT scan confirmed Wildung's findings; Thutmose had added gypsum under the cheeks and eyes in an attempt to perfect his sculpture. The scan revealed that Thutmose placed layers of varying thickness on top of the limestone core. The inner face has creases around her mouth and cheeks and a swelling on the nose. The creases and the bump on the nose are leveled by the outermost stucco layer. According to Huppertz, this may reflect "aesthetic ideals of the era". The 2006 scan provided greater detail than the 1992 one, revealing subtle details just under the stucco.

The bust has become "one of the most admired, and most copied, images from ancient Egypt", and the star exhibit used to market Berlin's museums. Her face is on postcards of Berlin and 1989 German postage stamps. when it was shipped to Berlin and presented to James Simon, a wholesale merchant and the sponsor of the Amarna excavation. Although the rest of the Amarna collection was displayed in 1913–14, the bust was kept secret at Borchardt's request.

Since the official unveiling of the bust in Berlin in 1924, Egyptian authorities have demanded its return to Egypt. In 1925, Egypt threatened to ban German excavations in Egypt unless the bust was returned. In 1929, Egypt offered to exchange other artifacts for the bust, but Germany declined. Although Germany had previously strongly opposed repatriation, in 1933 Hermann Göring considered returning the bust to King Fuad I of Egypt as a political gesture. Hitler opposed the idea and told the Egyptian government that he would build a new Egyptian museum for Nefertiti. "In the middle, this wonder, Nefertiti, will be enthroned," Hitler said. "I will never relinquish the head of the Queen." According to Kurt G. Siehr, another argument in support of repatriation is that "Archeological finds have their 'home' in the country of origin and should be preserved in that country." The repatriation issue sprang up again in 2003 over the Body of Nefertiti sculpture. In 2005, Hawass requested that UNESCO intervene to return the bust. In 2007, Hawass threatened to ban exhibitions of Egyptian artifacts in Germany, if the bust was not lent to Egypt, but to no avail. He also requested a worldwide boycott of loans to German museums to initiate what he called a "scientific war". Hawass wanted Germany to lend the bust to Egypt in 2012 for the opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Great Pyramids of Giza. Simultaneously, a campaign called "Nefertiti Travels" was launched by cultural association CulturCooperation, based in Hamburg, Germany. They distributed postcards depicting the bust with the words "Return to Sender" and wrote an open letter to German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann supporting the view that Egypt should be given the bust on loan. In 2009, when the bust was moved back to the Neues Museum, the appropriateness of Berlin as its location was questioned. Several German art experts have attempted to refute all the claims made by Hawass, pointing to the 1924 document discussing the pact between Borchardt and Egyptian authorities.

The French language book Le Buste de Nefertiti – une Imposture de l'Egyptologie ? (The Bust of Nefertiti – a Fraud in Egyptology?) by Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin and the book Missing Link in Archaeology by Berlin author and historian Erdogan Ercivan both claimed that the bust was a modern fake. Stierlin claims that Borchardt may have created the bust to test ancient pigments and that when the bust was admired by Prince Johann Georg of Saxony, Borchardt pretended it was genuine to avoid offending the prince. Stierlin argues that the missing left eye of the bust would have been a sign of disrespect in ancient Egypt, that no scientific records of the bust appear until 11 years after its supposed discovery in 1923 and, while the paint pigments are ancient, the inner limestone core has never been dated. French archaeologists present at the site as well never mentioned the finding and neither did written accounts of the digs. Stierlin remarked that the archaeologist "didn't even bother to supply a description, which is amazing for an exceptional work found intact". Ercivan suggests Borchardt's wife was the model for the bust and both authors argue that it was not revealed to the public until 1924 because it was a fake. The pigments used on the bust have been matched to those used by ancient Egyptian artisans. Chemical analysis on the dyes and pigments was initially done by Friedrich Rathgen, presented in Borchardt's book “Portrait of Queen Nofretete” (1923). Egyptian authorities also dismissed Stierlin's theory. Hawass said, "Stierlin is not a historian. He is delirious." Although Stierlin had argued "Egyptians cut shoulders horizontally" and Nefertiti had vertical shoulders, Hawass said that the new style seen in the bust is part of the changes introduced by Akhenaten, the husband of Nefertiti. Hawass also claimed that Thutmose had created the eye, but it was later destroyed.

In 2003, the Egyptian Museum in Berlin allowed the Hungarian artist duo Little Warsaw, András Gálik and Bálint Havas, to place the bust atop a nearly nude female bronze for a video installation to be shown at the Venice Biennale modern art festival. The artists said the project, called Body of Nefertiti, was an attempt to pay homage to the bust. According to Wildung, it showed "the continued relevance of the ancient world to today's art." The Egyptian Minister for Culture, Farouk Hosny, declared that Nefertiti was "not in safe hands" and although Egypt had not renewed their claims for restitution "due to the good relations with Germany," this "recent behaviour" was unacceptable. (not directly from the museum), however controversially attached a copyright to the work, which is in the public domain.

In 1930, the German press described the bust as their new monarch, personifying it as a queen. As the "'most precious  stone in the setting of the diadem' from the art treasures of 'Prussia Germany'", Nefertiti would re establish the imperial German national identity after 1918. In 1999, the bust appeared on an election poster for the green political party Bündnis 90/Die Grünen as a promise for a cosmopolitan and multi cultural environment with the slogan "Strong Women for Berlin!" According to Claudia Breger, another reason that the bust became associated with German national identity was its place as a rival to Tutankhamun, found by the British who then effectively controlled Egypt.