She is an enduring global symbol of beauty, power and mystery that has attracted Hitler, Beyonce and Arab Spring activists alike: Queen Nefertiti, whose name translates as “the beautiful has come”, is one of the most revered figures of the ancient world.
The great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten – who fundamentally changed Egyptian religion by promoting the worship of a single sun god, Aten – ruled more than 3,300 years ago. But Nefertiti’s current fame is largely due to the discovery of the painted plaster-coated limestone statue in 1912 by a German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt.
After this the statue was brought to Berlin. Today, it is “the undisputed star of the Neues Museum”, as stated on the website of the Prussian Cultural Foundation, which oversees the museum’s collection, which is part of the UNESCO-listed Berlin Museum Island.
Demand for restoration is increasing
Claims for compensation began soon after the discovery of the statue. Now, with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the calls are gaining momentum.
Visitors to the Grand Egyptian Museum are being asked to sign a petition launched last year by Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of tourism and antiquities.
“Despite numerous ignored appeals for meaningful dialogue, as well as requests for acknowledgment of how this unique artwork arrived in Germany, today’s petition seeks to reignite that dialogue, motivate the return of the statue to Cairo, and seek a respectful response from German authorities,” the petition reads.
A press spokesperson for the German Culture Minister told DW in a written statement that “Questions related to the protection of cultural property in relation to Egypt, including the Nefertiti statue, fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Foreign Office.” Meanwhile, the Federal Foreign Office says it has “not received any demands from Egyptian official bodies for the return of the Nefertiti statue,” and that it is “unaware of any such demands made to the German government.”
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation did not respond to DW’s requests for comment, but the foundation’s position on this issue has not changed over the years.
A legal acquisition?
“The statue of Nefertiti was found during excavations authorized by the Egyptian Antiquities Administration,” Stefan Müchler, spokesman for the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, told DW in a written statement in October 2024.
“The statue was taken out of the country legally and the Egyptian government has no compensation claim,” Mutchler said.
Egyptologist and heritage campaigner Monica Hanna disputes this claim. According to his research, Ludwig Borchardt deliberately and fraudulently overestimated the value of the statue when it came time to divide the find. He described it as “a painted royal princess”, while his own notes show that he knew it depicted Queen Nefertiti.
The archaeologist enthusiastically added in his notes, “The description is worthless, must be seen.”
German historian Sebastian Conrad, author of “The Making of a Global Icon: Nefertiti’s Twentieth-Century Career”, says that beyond the disputed details surrounding the division of finds, the moral validity of the law itself must be questioned: “This is a law that could only have existed under the unequal power relations of the imperial era, because Egypt was basically an English colony at the time. That means, in my opinion, the real question is whether “Can someone properly enforce such a law,” he told DW. “I would put it this way: It was formally legal, but from today’s perspective, it is not legal.”
Historian Jürgen Zimmerer, who focuses on colonialism and genocide studies, points out that there has been a similar debate in Germany over artefacts taken from Jews by the Nazis during the Third Reich: “We don’t just stand there and say, ‘It was legal then, so they have no claim.’ Instead, we see it as a moral achievement to say, ‘We do not insist on the letter of the law, but on the spirit of the law.’ We know these were illegal laws that dispossessed the Jews, and we don’t want to benefit from it,” he told DW. “And I wonder why we should proceed differently in a colonial context.”
Restoration attempt blocked by Hitler
Egyptologist Monica Hanna also questions Germany’s position that no compensation has been claimed by the Egyptian government. She points out that Egyptian authorities requested the statue’s return soon after it was first put on public display in Berlin in 1924, adding, “Does the museum really need to call on the government to do this? Public opinion in Egypt is very clear about the return of the statue of Nefertiti. What’s ours, is ours.”
In 1925, Egypt threatened to ban German excavations on its soil unless the statue was returned. James Simon, the philanthropist who financed Borchardt’s excavations and who donated the famous Nefertiti statue to the Berlin State Museums, personally argued for the exchange of fragments with Egypt and contributed to negotiating Nefertiti’s return, as researcher Ruth E. Iskin points out in her article “The Other Nefertiti: Symbolic Restorations”.
If Simon’s importance as an art patron has been recognized through the relatively new James Simon Gallery, the main entrance to Museum Island in Berlin, his efforts to return the statue were omitted from Germany’s official narrative.
Simon’s planned exchange did not occur, nor did the following attempt in 1933. Nazi leader Hermann Göring hoped to secure Egypt’s political allegiance to Germany by returning the statue. But Hitler, a great admirer of Nefertiti, blocked the project. He said, “I will never leave the queen’s head.”
World War II survivor in plastic bag
Germany has also argued that the statue is too fragile to be taken back to Egypt.
Admitting that he is not an expert on this question, historian Sebastian Conrad simply explains that “At the end of World War II, they put her in a plastic bag and put her in a salt mine in Thuringia. Later, she was taken to Wiesbaden. So she has already been on several trips, not only from Cairo to Berlin.”
A basic question for Germany
Berlin is currently engaged in the restitution of colonial objects, particularly through the return of Benin bronzes to Nigeria. Although it was the result of a long campaign by activists, such a concession was comparatively easy to make, as a portion of Berlin’s collection of 512 objects could be returned to Nigeria while others could be put on display at the Humboldt Forum through long-term loan.
Undoubtedly, Nefertiti is a unique work. Yet Conrad and Zimmerer believe there are options for maintaining the original: A reproduction of the statue, displayed alongside the history of the discovery and restoration efforts “would certainly be compelling,” Conrad says.
“What will be missing is the so-called aura of authenticity,” Zimmerer says. But, he asks, should the Berlin Museum benefit from this “aura”, given that it is tainted by colonial injustice? “In my opinion, it shouldn’t be like this.”
Edited by: Brenda Haas