Dispute over Nefertiti Egypt opens museum in Giza - and finally wants its queen back
With the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt is showing off its greatest treasures. But of all things, the country's most famous queen is missing: Nefertiti. She has been in Berlin for over 100 years. Now the call for her return is getting louder and louder.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- With the new Grand Egyptian Museum, the controversy over Nefertiti returns. It is a conflict that goes back to her excavation in 1912.
- For over a century, the bust of the most famous queen of ancient Egypt has fascinated and divided researchers - between the division of finds, colonial power issues and accusations of deception.
- Egypt demands justice, Germany emphasizes the legality of the division of the find - Nefertiti is at the center of a dispute about origin and ownership that remains unresolved to this day.
On November 1, after two decades of construction, Egypt finally opened its new cultural centerpiece: the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
A building of superlatives - right next to the pyramids, 490,000 square meters in size, equipped with state-of-the-art climate control and security technology.
Over 100,000 artifacts from Pharaonic, Hellenistic and Roman times tell 7,000 years of history. Among the giants: Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Cheops and Tutankhamun - complete with golden death mask, throne and chariot.
But one is missing.
The beauty with the swan neck
Queen Nefertiti - the ruler with the long neck, the almond-shaped eyes and the unmistakable blue crown. Her 3400-year-old bust, sculpted from stucco around a limestone and artistically painted, is considered the epitome of ancient Egyptian beauty - and one of the most famous works of art in the world.
But instead of Giza, it is enthroned in the Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island - and thus becomes the main character in an archaeological mystery that has remained unsolved for over a hundred years.
"You've had Nefertiti long enough"
It was foreseeable that her absence would be conspicuous at the grand opening festivities in Giza - and that it would cause a stir. For over 100 years, Egypt and Germany have been fighting over the same question:
Who does the queen belong to?
The German news magazine "Spiegel" provocatively captures the mood with a quote from an Egyptian activist in its title: "You've had Nefertiti long enough."
In the very first sentence, the article about the opening of the new Egyptian museum leads the reader to Berlin: "Like BER airport, the construction of the museum has dragged on forever" - except that in Giza, it is not construction delays but old wounds that make the headlines.
The trail leads to Berlin
Berlin, summer 1913: After a long voyage by ship, Nefertiti secretly arrives in the German capital - the world knows nothing about her. Her excavator Ludwig Borchardt keeps her under lock and key, showing her only to insiders.
Why the game of hide-and-seek? Is he afraid that his coup might be exposed?
The dispute over the queen
Cairo, spring 1924: Nefertiti is barely on public display for the first time in the Neues Museum in Berlin when protests erupt. The French Director General of the Egyptian Antiquities Administration, Pierre Lacau, doubted the legality of the division of the find and suspected that Borchardt had deceived the Egyptian authorities.
What began as a technical dispute grew into an international political issue.
As early as the 1930s, Egypt's nationalist government demanded the return. Adolf Hitler refused: "I will never give up the Queen's head," he is reported to have said. He wanted to exhibit it in his "Führer Museum".
One of the first photos of the bust of Nefertiti, shortly after its discovery in Tell el-Amarna in 1912, from left to right: excavation supervisor Herrmann Ranke, Paul Hollander and Mohammed es-Senussi.
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
The stele of Akhenaten with his family, known today as the "hinged altar of Cairo", was the piece that went to the Egyptian side as Lot 1 when the find was divided up in 1913. In return, the German excavator Ludwig Borchardt received the bust of Nefertiti.
Image: IMAGO/United Archives
Queen Nefertiti, shown here in a rare, old color photograph, went to the German excavators on January 20, 1913 in the still controversial division of the find and was immediately shipped to Berlin.
Image: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Black-and-white photograph of Nefertiti, December 1912. The elaborate glass plate development demanded the utmost precision and endurance from the photographers. The object photographs were produced as 18 × 24 cm prints.
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
Ludwig Borchardt documented the discovery of Nefertiti in his excavation diary: next to a sketch of the bust, he wrote: "Life-size painted bust of the queen, 47 cm high, with the blue wig just cut off at the top, which still has a folded ribbon halfway up. Colors as just applied. Excellent work. Describing is useless, look at it.
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
In the official discovery report of January 20, 1913, the bust of Nefertiti is no longer described as a "colorful queen", but as a "Buste en plâtre, peint, d'uneprincesse de la famille royale", i.e. a "plaster bust, painted, of a princess of the royal family".
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
Ludwig Borchardt with his wife Emilie, 1929. Cornelius von Pilgrim, Director of the Swiss Institute for Egyptian Architectural Research in Cairo, describes him as an argumentative, clear-thinking researcher who knew exactly what he wanted (source: Die Zeit).
Image: Schweizerisches Institut für Bauforschung und Altertumskunde in Kairo
A beautiful back can also be enchanting. In the Neues Museum in Berlin, the colorful queen can be admired from all sides. Berliners like to refer to her as the "Mona Lisa of Berlin's Museum Island".
Image: AFP
The newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum near the pyramids of Giza - Nefertiti would probably be given an equally prominent place here if she were to return.
Image: Imago
One of the first photos of the bust of Nefertiti, shortly after its discovery in Tell el-Amarna in 1912, from left to right: excavation supervisor Herrmann Ranke, Paul Hollander and Mohammed es-Senussi.
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
The stele of Akhenaten with his family, known today as the "hinged altar of Cairo", was the piece that went to the Egyptian side as Lot 1 when the find was divided up in 1913. In return, the German excavator Ludwig Borchardt received the bust of Nefertiti.
Image: IMAGO/United Archives
Queen Nefertiti, shown here in a rare, old color photograph, went to the German excavators on January 20, 1913 in the still controversial division of the find and was immediately shipped to Berlin.
Image: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Black-and-white photograph of Nefertiti, December 1912. The elaborate glass plate development demanded the utmost precision and endurance from the photographers. The object photographs were produced as 18 × 24 cm prints.
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
Ludwig Borchardt documented the discovery of Nefertiti in his excavation diary: next to a sketch of the bust, he wrote: "Life-size painted bust of the queen, 47 cm high, with the blue wig just cut off at the top, which still has a folded ribbon halfway up. Colors as just applied. Excellent work. Describing is useless, look at it.
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
In the official discovery report of January 20, 1913, the bust of Nefertiti is no longer described as a "colorful queen", but as a "Buste en plâtre, peint, d'uneprincesse de la famille royale", i.e. a "plaster bust, painted, of a princess of the royal family".
Image: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung
Ludwig Borchardt with his wife Emilie, 1929. Cornelius von Pilgrim, Director of the Swiss Institute for Egyptian Architectural Research in Cairo, describes him as an argumentative, clear-thinking researcher who knew exactly what he wanted (source: Die Zeit).
Image: Schweizerisches Institut für Bauforschung und Altertumskunde in Kairo
A beautiful back can also be enchanting. In the Neues Museum in Berlin, the colorful queen can be admired from all sides. Berliners like to refer to her as the "Mona Lisa of Berlin's Museum Island".
Image: AFP
The newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum near the pyramids of Giza - Nefertiti would probably be given an equally prominent place here if she were to return.
Image: Imago
In 1953, after the military coup in Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser took up the case again. Decades later, the Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, demanded the return of Nefertiti, at least as a loan, in 2007 and 2011.
But Berlin remains firm - the masterpiece is said to be too fragile for transportation.
The suspicion of an old scam
In 2023, Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna causes a stir. Her research team claims to have found evidence that Nefertiti was illegally transported to Germany.
Hanna accuses Ludwig Borchardt of having deceived her about the division of the find - based on a law from 1891 and a contract with the excavation financier James Simon, which expressly prohibited foreign archaeologists from owning Egyptian masterpieces.
Berlin counters
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which now owns the bust, rejects all accusations. Hermann Parzinger, President of the Foundation until 2025, told Der Spiegel in 2023:
"There can be no question of deception in the division, as has been falsely claimed time and again."
The claim that Egypt had already formally demanded the return in 1924 is also false. According to Parzinger, there were only moral appeals - no legal claims.
The Amarna Valley crime scene
To understand the case, you have to go back to 1912, to the Amarna Valley, once the capital of Pharaoh Akhenaten. There, excavator Ludwig Borchardt discovers the colorful bust of the queen in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmosis.
On December 6, 1912, he noted in his excavation diary:
"Life-size painted bust of the queen. Colors as just applied. Excellent work. Describing is useless - look at it!"
On December 23, 1912, the bust of Nefertiti was professionally photographed in the excavation house, as Friederike Seyfried explains in detail in her essay "The Bust of Nefertiti, Documentation of the Find and the Division of the Find 1912/1913".
The 18 x 24 centimeter black and white prints were available for viewing on the day of the official division of the find, 20 January 1913.
The division of the finds itself was carried out in accordance with the rule in force at the time of dividing the finds in half: as early as June 1912, however, the British Consul General Lord Herbert Kitchener had ordered a stricter application of the regulations in force since 1891 - "à moitié exacte".
The French phrase literally means "exactly halved" or "exactly half" and was intended to prevent European expeditions from being favored.
The night before the decision
Accordingly, Borchardt's team does not really expect to be allowed to export Nefertiti to Germany.
Years later, Bruno Güterbock, a German private scholar who happened to be present, reported in a letter that the Germans had said goodbye to the bust in a candlelit ceremony in the excavation house on the evening before the find was divided up.
The division of the find: Borchardt's coup at Amarna
The next day, in the presence of Gustave Lefebvre, the French inspector of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, the division of the find was officially carried out. According to contemporary witness Güterbock, Borchardt "conducted the negotiations so skillfully that they still ended up on the German side".
Legends surround this scene. Did Borchardt only show the Egyptian inspector bad black and white photos? Did he even smear the bust with clay to conceal its value?
There is no evidence of this.
In fact, Borchardt noted in his excavation diary what Lefebvre inspected: "He inspected the pieces made of hard rock particularly closely: the stele, the colorful queen and the princesses."
What is striking, however, is that the official record of the division of the find no longer refers to a "painted bust of a queen", as in the excavation diary, but only to a "plaster bust, painted, a princess of the royal family".
Was this intentional or a coincidence? This is precisely where the suspicion that has overshadowed the case to this day arises.
Egyptologist Monica Hanna believes that excavator Ludwig Borchardt deliberately cheated: concealing the value of the bust, downgrading it and thus enabling it to be exported.
There is no final proof.
But there is much to suggest that Borchardt had long since recognized the true value of his discovery. He was a connoisseur of Egyptian iconography. He knew what he was dealing with.
The spark of the Nefertiti affair
When Borchardt published his book in 1924, just in time for the first public presentation of Nefertiti in Berlin, he ignited the next stage of the affair. He proudly wrote that he had "immediately recognized the historical and artistic value of Nefertiti".
For Pierre Lacau, the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, this was a provocation, a public slap in the face for his authority. Tensions escalate.
"It was his audacity to boast in his monograph that he had immediately recognized the historical and artistic value of Nefertiti," writes Egyptologist Susanne Voss in "Die Geschichte der Abteilung Kairo des DAI im Spannungsfeld deutscher politischer Interessen".
Borchardt thus publicly questioned the expertise of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities with retroactive effect and further exacerbated the tensions.
Since then, the Nefertiti case has cast a shadow over relations between Cairo and Berlin.
The eternal dispute over justice
To this day, Nefertiti is not officially considered looted art in Berlin. But in Egypt it remains a symbol of colonial injustice. German historian Jürgen Zimmerer points out that Egypt was effectively under British control at the time the art was divided up.
No one asked the Egyptians whether their queen was allowed to leave the country. According to today's ethical standards, Zimmerer said in an interview with Der Spiegel in 2023, the answer could therefore only be Nefertiti belongs in Egypt.
In purely legal terms, her export may have been correct. Morally, however, it would be inconceivable today to simply remove such an iconic work from its country of origin.
It is precisely this moral tension that still shapes the debate today.
More than a hundred years after its discovery, Nefertiti has long been more than just a work of art. It is evidence in a case that has never been closed - an artifact that raises questions that no court has decided.
With the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, the dispute is now flaring up again.
The question is no longer whether Egypt wants its queen back. The question is how long Germany can still refuse to return it.
An e-mail inquiry sent by the blue News editorial team to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation on November 10 remained unanswered until the editorial deadline on Friday evening, November 14.
blue News wanted to know whether the opening of the new museum in Giza was a reason to consider a temporary loan of Nefertiti - especially as the new building removes previous conservation and security objections.
In addition, blue News asked whether the foundation was considering returning the bust to Egypt for moral reasons, as German historians are now also demanding.
