The stunning 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, currently the star attraction of Berlin’s Neues Museum, is at the heart of an escalating restitution debate. Historians and Egyptian campaigners are forcefully challenging Germany’s legal and moral right to the artifact, which was discovered by a German team in 1912. They argue that the bust’s acquisition was based on a deliberate understatement of its value. While German institutions maintain that the piece was legally acquired and is too fragile to move, experts point out that it survived World War II stored in a salt mine. The experts also question the ethical legitimacy of laws applied during imperialist rule, drawing parallels to the restitution of Nazi-looted art. With a new petition gaining momentum at Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum, pressure is mounting for a dignified and mutually acceptable resolution.
DW
