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Queen Nefertiti moves back to previous museum home
Oct 5, 2009, 13:06 GMT
Berlin - The ancient Egyptian bust of Queen Nefertiti has been moved back to the Berlin museum which exhibited it before the Second World War, culture officials said Monday.
Egypt has repeatedly demanded the return of the exquisite female head, which was found during an archaeological dig near Amarna in 1913 and acquired by a German collector and businessman, James Simon.
He gave it to Berlin's Egyptian collection on permanent loan.
The Neues Museum where it was exhibited was wrecked when the Red Army invaded Berlin in 1945, but the limestone bust had been placed two years previously in safe storage in a salt mine. The Egyptian collection was later shown in various Berlin locations.
Located on Museum Island between two arms of a river, the Neues Museum has now been restored at a cost of 200 million euros (292 million dollars).
A spokeswoman said the bust, previously exhibited in the neighbouring Altes Museum, was shifted Sunday amid high security and would remain in its packaging for several days while it acclimatized to the new air. It is to go back on public display on October 17.
The bust of the pharaoh's wife was sculpted 3,500 years ago.
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