Little is known about Nefertiti beyond her marriage to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten in the 14th century BC, and that she was considered beautiful. She may – or may not – have been the mother of the boy king Tutankhamun. She may – or may not – have been a pharaoh herself. Much of her legacy is lost to history, but her striking appearance is attested to by her name (Nefertiti means “the beautiful one has come”) and by the ancient limestone bust of her that now sits on display in Berlin’s Neues Museum, where it is also known by its inventory code "AM 21300”.
That does not sit well with many Egyptians, who have been trying for nearly a century to see the bust returned. When the bust was excavated by a German team in 1912, along with thousands of other artefacts, the norm in archaeology was that large finds were divided equally between the archaeologists and the country of origin. A popular rumour claims Ludwig Borchardt, the lead archaeologist, tricked French and Egyptian antiquities officials about the bust’s true value in order to keep it. The ensuing resentments last to this day.
Zahi Hawass, the renowned Egyptologist and former Egyptian antiquities minister, has led the charge in efforts to repatriate Nefertiti’s bust. On Sunday, he launched an online petition asking as much from Germany’s Culture Minister and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), the bust’s owner under German law.
A similar campaign by Mr Hawass in 2007 was more or less ignored by German authorities. At an exhibition marking the centenary of the bust’s discovery, Hermann Parzinger, the head of SPK, declared: “Nefertiti belongs to all of us. She is part of the world’s cultural heritage.”
That may be true in the grand scheme of things. But in a more immediate sense, Nefertiti is part of Egypt’s cultural heritage, and early-20th century archaeological rules do not diminish that fact. Germany, which by law does not allow the permanent export of art and artefacts of “national importance”, ought to understand this.
The ethics of artefact acquisition and ownership is a contentious subject among archaeologists, cultural officials and politicians. There is near-universal agreement that removing objects from their lands today should be unlawful. But for those taken before such laws existed, the morality is murkier. Occasionally, artefacts have been removed from countries in armed conflict, to prevent looting or destruction.
But that is not an argument against repatriation to other countries where there is no immediate danger to the artefacts, and which deserve to reclaim their history. Few are more deserving than Egypt, where the antiquities sector is highly experienced and domestic expertise on the pharaonic period rivals counterparts in the West – thanks in no small part to Mr Hawass.
Nefertiti’s bust, Mr Hawass writes in his petition, tells the story of our common humanity, but “that story can be told from its origin country”. If Egypt’s booming tourist numbers are anything to go by – 15 million last year, the largest number of whom were German – it can be told rather well, too. It is time for the beautiful one to come home.
