German Archaeologists Discovered the Iconic Bust of Nefertiti in an Ancient Egyptian Sculptor’s Studio. Find Out Why Their Discovery Is Now One of Archaeology’s Most Controversial

“Life-sized painted bust of the queen, 47 cm high. With the flat-cut blue wig, which also has a ribbon wrapped around it halfway up,” Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt wrote in his diary on December 6, 1912. “Work absolutely exceptional. Description is useless, must be seen.”

The discovery that the German Egyptologist believed was exceptional beyond words was the iconic limestone and stucco bust of Nefertiti, one-time queen of Egypt and wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled in the 14th century B.C.E.

But what began as a profound appreciation of the 18-inch-high sculpture’s beauty in Borchardt’s diary 112 years ago quickly became an archaeological scandal for the ages, prompting questions of ownership and repatriation even in modern times.

The controversy started at an excavation of an ancient city on the Nile. Tell el-Amarna, also known as Akhetaton, captured the imaginations of Borchardt and the European archaeological community around the turn of the century as the capital city built under Akhenaten after he focused the spiritual life of his kingdom on a single god, Aten.

In 1911, Borchardt won the support of James Simon, a wealthy art collector who founded the German Oriental Society, to finance an excavation at the site where Atenism—arguably the world’s first monotheistic religion—was born.

Previous expeditions had already mapped the ancient city completely. But Borchardt and his team soon focused their attention on a modest, still-unexplored workshop belonging to Thutmose, a sculptor.

On the day the archaeologists found the Nefertiti bust, German nobles from Saxony were visiting Tell el-Amarna, and Borchardt dashed between his honorable guests and the excavation. Then, Hermann Ranke, another Egyptologist, informed him that “something good is coming out.”

As Borchardt approached Thutmose’s workshop, “the tools were put aside, and the hands were now used,” he wrote. “It took a considerable amount of time until the whole piece was completely freed from all the dirt and rubble.”

After it was all cleared away, he recalled, “we had the most lifelike Egyptian work of art in our hands.”

The Germans were intent on keeping Nefertiti in their hands, too. As the foreign holder of the site’s excavation license, the German group divided its findings at Tell el-Amarna with Egyptian authorities, “as was usual at that time,” wrote Kurt G. Siehr in Imperialism, Art and Restitution.

But the legality and ethics of the transaction has long been disputed. In 2009, German magazine Der Spiegel obtained German-language documentation of a 1913 deal between German and Egyptian authorities that claimed Borchardt “wanted to save the bust for us.” The Egyptologist reportedly showed an unflattering photograph of the bust to Egyptian antiquities inspectors and kept the crate in a dimly lit room to downplay its importance.

Nefertiti traveled back to Germany in that crate, and Simon took possession of it before donating it to the Berlin State Museums in 1920.

Aside from a brief stint in a Thuringian salt mine for safekeeping during World War II, the bust has more or less stayed put since its 1923 unveiling. But that has not extinguished the debate about who rightfully should own or display Nefertiti’s bust.

Egyptian archaeologist urges German museum to return Nefertiti's bust

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The Neues Museum, which currently houses the bust in Berlin, claims all transactions were aboveboard and conducted in accordance with the customs of the early 20th century. By contrast, Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptian archaeologist and former Egyptian tourism and antiquities minister, maintains the bust “left Egypt illegally.”

Germans and Egyptians apparently bargained over the bust throughout the 1920s. By 1929, they appeared to be on the brink of a successful deal. But according to British Foreign Office documents, Adolf Hitler eventually nixed the deal out of sheer admiration for the object. In the years since, Egypt has taken measures to pressure Germany into returning the controversial bust, including denying excavation permits to German archaeologists and offering trades of other antiquities for the artwork.

The claims on the bust of Nefertiti are unending. But for now, it sits alone in a stark room in Berlin, a work of timeless beauty surrounded by modern scandal.

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.