Egypt’s ministry of culture said Monday it officially asked Germany to return a 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, which has been a point of dispute between the two countries.
The request was sent after four years of research by a committee composed of legal experts and Egyptologists, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.
‘The government of Egypt is confident that the German authorities will assist in facilitating its return,’ the statement said.
The painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, the wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, is currently on display at Berlin’s Neues Museum, where it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
German Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt and his team discovered the bust during a 1912 excavation at Tell al-Amarna and allocated to the German arts patron who financed the dig.
German officials say the bust was legally purchased in 1913. They also say it is too delicate to be moved.
The antiquities council said the request to Germany is part of Egypt’s ‘long-standing policy of seeking the restitution of all archaeological artifacts that have been taken illicitly out of the country.’
Antiquities chief Zahi Hawas said ‘the bust, upon its return, will be exhibited at the Akhenaten Museum in Minya, opening in early 2012.’