Nefertiti the queen

Metawh1

16 Jan, 2023

Queen Nefertiti, whose name means “the beautiful one has come,” is the wife of King Amenhotep IV (who later became Akhenaten), the famous pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and the protector of Tutankhamun, she was considered one of the most powerful women in ancient Egypt, she lived a short period after her husband's death, and helped Tutankhamun take over the kingship, this beautiful queen had a high status during her husband's rule, she belonged to the Eighteenth Dynasty, and lived in the fourteenth century BC, and like what happened with her husband, her name was erased from historical records and her pictures were distorted after her death.

An interview about Nefertiti's statue

Is that statue original or forgery?!

As the famous Egyptian archeologist Zahy Hawas stated that this statue was illegally transferred from Egypt to Berlin.

the Egyptian archeologist Zahy Hawas

A meet was held between Ludwig Borchart and the director of antiquates of middle Egypt "Gustave Lefevre" in the tenth of January 1913 to discuss the division of archaeological discoveries found in 1912 between Germany and Egypt.

Whereas the division of discoveries according to the Antiquities Law at the time was “equal shares” between Egypt and the excavation mission via a joint committee headed by a representative of the Antiquities Authority from the Egyptian government.

Sir Gaston Maspero French Egyptoloi

After Lefevre signed the division agreement, this was approved by the director of the Antiquities Department at the time, Gaston Maspero, and then shipped directly to Berlin, and the statue arrived in Germany in the same year 1913

Henry Sterlin, a specialist in art history found out that bust of Nefertiti shown in Madrid is actually a copy of it dating back to 1912 Completed to test pigments used by ancient Egyptians

loss eye inside the sign

And he added in his new book The bust on display in the Altes Museum in Berlin was commissioned by archaeologist Ludwig Borchart at the excavation site by an artist named Gerard Marx.

"It is more and more likely that the bust is not original" Sterlin clarified.

The archeologist wanted to make a new statue of Nefertiti while she put on a necklace he knew she had, but when conducting a color test for the pigment, he discovered that this necklace was separately found in the excavation … Sterlin said.

Sterlin said on 6 December 1912, a German prince admired a copy of the bust, thinking it was the original, explaining that the archaeologist did not dare to disagree with his gust

The historian, who has worked on this subject for 25 years, explained that he based his conclusions on several factors, adding that does not include the left eye and was not designed to have one, this is an insult to the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the statue is the same person.

And it is said that Borchardt supposes that the iris of the left eye fell when the sculptor's workshop was vandalized, however, an extensive search failed to find her in the ruins of the workshop.

The loss of the left eye led to speculation that Nefertiti suffered from inflammation in the eyes, and that she actually lost her left eye, but the presence of the eye in other statues contradicts this possibility.

One view says that the statue was intentionally not completed, while "Zahi Hawass"(Former Egyptian Minister of Tourism) believes that the artist and sculptor Thutmose made the left eye, but it was later destroyed

Dr. Ahmed Badran" – an Egyptian archeologist - explains that in 2006, "Dietrich Wildung", director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, noticed, when changing the direction of the lighting directed on the statue, the presence of wrinkles on Nefertiti's neck and under her eyes, which suggests that the sculptor Thutmose tried to depict the signs of aging on the statue, the CT scans showed the validity of Fieldung's observations. Thutmose added folds of plaster under the eyes and on the neck, in an attempt to perfect his carving.

Dr Ahmed Badran Egyptian archeologist

The design of the shoulders is vertically like the method adopted since the nineteenth century, while the Egyptian were horizontally designing shoulders, and there is an emphasis on facial features in the manner of the technical school way." Sterlin added.

He stressed the impossibility of scientifically completed confirming the date of the completion of the bust because it was made of stones covered with plaster.

The dye that was able to be determined it is ancient," he clarified.

Sternlin also referred to problems he noticed during the discovery and transport process to Germany and in scientific reports at that time.

Nefertiti's shoulder

The French archeologists who were attendant did not refer to all this discovery and did not put any written reports on the excavation, the first detailed scientific report was issued in 1923, 11 years after discovery

Sterlin explained German archeologist did not even describe what was discovered, which was astonished for an exceptional piece that was found complete.

And the Swiss historian considered that Prochart "was sure that the bust was not the original. he left it for ten years in the living room of the person who patronized him, as if he left the mask of Tutankhamun in the living room of his house".

Finally, The statue has been placed in several locations in Germany since it was found, and since 2009, the statue has settled in the new Berlin Museum up till now and has been visited by a quarter of a million tourists annually.