Egypt Alleges Germany Stole Nefertiti Bust, Demands Return

Who looted whom?

The hide, the chutzpah of these Mohammedans is astounding. These are the same pirates who terrorized Europe for more than 1300 years, raided the coast’s of Europe and  took more than a million white slaves. Why  don’t western nations demand reparations?

• Islam: Fourteen Centuries of Military Campaigns

Egypt’s antiquities chief announced he will formally demand that a 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti displayed at Berlin’s Neues Museum for 85 years be returned to its homeland.

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, found that the bust—one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt—was smuggled out of Cairo through fraudulent documents, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Hawass has been leading an aggressive campaign to reclaim treasures allegedly stolen from Egypt. Since assuming his role as head of antiquities in 2002, he has recovered some 5,000 artifacts.

Just this past week, Hawass convinced the Louvre in Paris to return 3,200-year-old painted wall fragments from that were stolen from a tomb excavation in 1975. Hawass pressured the museum to hand over the artifacts by suspending their current excavation in southern Cairo.

The bust of Nefertiti is one of the high-profile items Hawass is demanding. Egypt has asked for it to be returned since it was first displayed in Germany in 1924.

It is believed that German excavator Ludwig Borchart disguised the bust’s true value by covering it with clay, and then listed the artifact in official documents as simply “a painted plaster bust of a princess.”

However, Borchardt clearly refers to the artifact as the head of Nefertiti in his diary—meaning he may have intentionally written a deceitful description so Germany could obtain the statue.

According to German news source Deutsche Welle, Friedrike Seyfried, director of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection at the Neues Museum has rebuffed Hawass’ claims.

“The German position is clear and unequivocal,” she said. “The acquisition of the bust by the Prussian state was lawful.”

German authorities have also ruled out temporarily lending the treasured artifact to Egypt, maintaining the bust is too fragile to move.

The bust was discovered in 1912 at Tell el-Amarna and shipped to Germany in 1913. Egypt first requested the statue be returned in 1930 but each successive German government has refused.

Nefertiti—whose name means the beautiful one has come—is the wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton. The royal couple is known for changing Egypt’s religion from polytheism to a religion worshipping just one god, Aten, the sun. Some scholars believe Nefertiti ruled Egypt for a brief period after her husband’s death.

Among the other famous artifacts on Hawass’ list include the painted ceiling of the Dendera temple showing the Zodiac at the Louvre, the bust of Achhaf from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and a statue of the Hemiunu from Germany’s Roemer-Pelizaeu museum.

Rumors are also circulating that Hawass will ask for the Rosetta Stone, a multilingual slab that was key to deciphering hieroglyphics that has been on display almost continuously at the British Museum since 180

Oh well, perhaps the Muslims will also demand the skulls of Otranto to be returned:

Vlad Tepes Blog:

here is a photograph of over 800 skulls of people Muslim invaders butchered for refusing to convert to Islam which the re-takers of the city in Italy in 1480 put behind glass walls in the cathedral.

It is interesting to note that the pope in Rome called for a crusade in response to this horror and that according to wikipedia.

Full size here, click

Since it was only 28 years after the fall of Constantinople, there was some fear that Rome would suffer the same fate. Plans were made for the Pope and citizens of Rome evacuate the city. Pope Sixtus IVrepeated his 1471 call for a crusade. Several Italian city-states, Hungary and France responded positively to this. The Republic of Venice did not, as it had signed an expensive peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1479.

In 1481 an army was raised by king Ferdinand I of Naples to be led by his son Alphonso II of Naples. A contingent of troops was provided by king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.

How the 800 Martyrs of Otranto Saved Rome

On August 14, 1480, a massacre was perpetrated on a hill just outside the city of Otranto, in southern Italy. Eight hundred of the city’s male inhabitants were taken to a place called the Hill of the Minerva, and, one by one, beheaded in full view of their fellow prisoners. The spot forever after became known as the Hill of the Martyrs.

Tagged as: Crusades, Demands, Egypt, Germany, Otranto, Queen Nefertiti