Among the topics that are raised from time to time is the head of Nefertiti, the statue that came out of Egypt illegally by deceiving its discoverer, the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt at the time of division, and 108 years ago, specifically on December 6, 1912 AD, the statue was discovered, in Tell el-Amarna Led by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, along with many other busts of Nefertiti.
When Borchart discovered his description in his memoirs, saying: “Suddenly, the best remaining Egyptian artworks are in our hands. This cannot be described in words. You must see it.” This is the opposite of what he said during the division, when he showed Gustav Lefevre, director of the Antiquities Inspection of Central Egypt, a picture Poor lighting for the statue of Nefertiti, as the statue was hidden in a box when visiting "Gustave Lefevre", and the document revealed that Borchart claimed that the statue was made of gypsum, but that it was made of fine limestone.
So what are the attempts that Egypt has made to return the statue again, and are there any attempts at the present time ?, That is why we review Egypt's attempts to retrieve the statue again, so the beginning was when the Egyptian authorities demanded that the statue return to Egypt, since the statue was unveiled and it was first displayed in the Berlin Museum In 1924, Pierre Laceau, director of the Antiquities Authority at the time and the successor of Maspero, demanded that the statue be returned to Egypt and questioned the division that it had been done in an immoral manner, and in 1925 CE, Egypt threatened to ban German excavation of antiquities in Egypt, unless the statue of Nefertiti was returned. Borchart prevented the statue's discoverer from excavating in Egypt, and the German Eastern Company blamed the inspector’s negligence, and indicated that the statue was at the top of the division list, and that the agreement was intended.
In 1929, Pierre Laco visited Berlin and met with the director of the Berlin Museum at the time, Heinrich Schaeffer, and they agreed to solve the problem. Egypt offered to exchange the statue for two statues, which are Raanfar from the Fifth Dynasty and a seated statue of Amenhotep Ibn Hapu of the Eighteenth Dynasty. However, public opinion was the opposite of that until the ministry refused in 1930 AD under the direction of Alfred Grimm.
The book "The Queens of Egypt" by Dr. Mamdouh Al-Damati, a professor of Egyptian antiquities at Ain Shams University says, Egypt tried again to start negotiations about the statue, but without a response from Germany, except that on the anniversary of King Fouad I's accession to the throne in 1933, Hermann Goering called for a minister of arms. The Nazi atmosphere by returning the statue of King Fouad I as a political initiative, and with the support of Hatter's media official and the prominent Nazi politician Joseph Regube, Hitler agreed in principle, but the public opinion presented the idea, and when Hitler visited the museum and saw the statue, he also opposed the idea, and told the Egyptian government that he would build a new Egyptian museum for Nefertiti.
When the statue became under the control of the Americans after World War II, Egypt demanded that the United States of America hand it over the statue, and the United States of America agreed at first that an exhibition of Amarna art and Nefertiti would be held in New York and then return to Cairo after that, but after it had seen the statue's exit papers She refused and considered that the statue came out of Egypt with a legitimate split, and advised Egypt to discuss the issue with the new German authorities.
The book "The Queens of Egypt" stated that in 1976, Dr. Abdel Qader Selim, head of the Antiquities Authority, demanded again the return of Ras Nefertiti, but Helmut Schmidt, the West German advisor, complained to President Anwar Sadat and dismissed him, as the Egyptian-German relations had returned to improvement after being tense for several years.
Then Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced that the statue of Nefertiti is the king of Egypt, and that it came out of Egypt illegally, and therefore it should be returned. He demanded that Germany prove its legal possession of the statue. In 2005, Hawass asked UNESCO to intervene to restore the statue.
In 2007, Hawass threatened to ban exhibitions of Egyptian antiquities in Germany, if Germany did not lend a statue of Nefertiti to Egypt, but to no avail. Hawass also called for a global boycott of German museums lending artefacts, initiating what he called a "scientific war". Hawass called for the title "Nefertiti Trips" launched by cultural cooperation societies, where they distributed postcards bearing a picture of Nefertiti with the phrase "Return to the Sender" and wrote an open letter to the German Minister of Culture Bernd Neumann, supporting the return of the statue to Egypt, but Germany fears that it will not return The statue, if loaned to Egypt.
Dr. Zahi Hawass gave an official speech in 2010 after obtaining the approval of the Prime Minister at the time, to send the letter, Hawass says to “The Seventh Day”, the Prime Minister decided to sign me on the answer, and I was then Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and the letter was formally sent For the return of Nefertiti, and this is the first official letter sent to Germany, as there was a request from one of the Egyptian governments in the last century, but it was not fulfilled.
After that, the German government sent a response to my letter demanding that it be signed by the Minister of Culture at the time, and by the time the letter arrived to Dr. Zahi Hawass, he had become Minister of Antiquities. I was not given the opportunity to sign the letter again, in his ministerial capacity.
In order to retrieve the unique artifact of Nefertiti, Dr. Zahi Hawass is currently working on forming an Egyptian team of Egyptian and international thinkers and intellectuals, by signing an official letter, and it will be sent to Germany far from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with the necessity of the return of Nefertiti's head, given the awakening the world is witnessing. Now that Europe and America stole the antiquities of Africa, and an attempt to recover the antiquities that were stolen from Africa during the colonial period.
Mon, Dec. 7, 2020
