Return Nefertiti statue, Egypt to tell Germany

CAIRO - Egypt is set to officially ask Germany to return a 3,300-year-old statue as it is believed to have been illegally taken out of the country in the early 20th century, an official has said.

Egypt maintains that the priceless limestone bust of Nefertiti, queen of ancient Egypt and wife of monotheistic Pharaoh Akhenaten, was taken out of the country in 1914 through fraudulent documents. It has been on display in Berlin’s Neues Museum since 1924.

“Berlin has already confirmed that it has proofs that the bust of Nefertiti has been taken out of the country illegally, so we just have to perform an official procedure of returning this lost object of art to its homeland,” said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Germany’s Culture Minister Bernd Neumann earlier said the artefact was obtained by legal means and Egypt therefore had no grounds to demand its return.

Egypt has recently launched an aggressive campaign to get back six of the most famous artefacts taken out of the country, the Asharq Alawsat paper has said.

The list features the Nefertiti statue and the famous 2,200-year-old Rosetta Stone, which provided the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and has been on display at the British Museum since 1802.

Other objects on the list are the statue of Great Pyramid architect Hemiun kept in the Pelizaeus Museum in the German city of Hildesheim, the bust of Prince Ankhhaf from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Dendera Zodiac from Louvre in Paris, and the statue of Pharaoh Ramses II in the Turin museum.

–RIA Novosti