Queen of Egypt's Heart

Originally published August 20 - 26, 2009 | Al-Ahram Weekly Online | by Jill Kamil

The following is an excerpt from an article at Al-Ahram Weekly Online, which describes the famous bust of Nefertiti' long history, both ancient and modern:

Nefertiti's bust has recently made headlines, in newspapers, magazines, and by bloggers on the Internet. BBC News, under the title "German guile won Queen Nefertiti..." described how "newly- published documents show how a German archaeologist used trickery to smuggle home a fabulous sculpture of the Egyptian Queen, Nefertiti." Agence France-Press confidently reported that the famed bust was a 20th-century copy. And Dawn Martinez-Byrne, in a blog, posed several questions that caught my attention because I had heard many of them before -- voiced by Egyptian post- revolutionary intellectuals.

It looks like the Germans are giving Zahi Hawass a dose of his own medicine, claiming that the "Berlin Bust" is far too delicate to travel back to her homeland. I say, those wooden coffers in the traveling Tutankhamun exhibit are far more delicate than Nefertit's bust, being made of far more delicate material.

Egypt Warns Pharaohs' Tombs Could Disappear

Originally published August 18, 2009 | Yahoo! News - Singapore and Agence France Presse

The following is an excerpt from Yahoo! News in Singapore. Click the above link to read the full story.

The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned.

Zahi Hawass said humidity and fungus are eating into the walls of the royal tombs in the huge necropolis on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor, which is swamped daily by several thousand tourists.

This sort of trouble for the KV and QV tombs (and other places, for that matter) has been going on for many years. Can you imagine how exponentially quick tomb art deteriorated during Egyptology's infancy? I'd be freaking out, for sure. Expediency in this situation wouldn't be hazardous in preserving the rich art of the Ancient Egyptians. I'm hoping that by the time I visit Egypt, Zahi Hawass will have implemented a system to all sites that allows tourists to visit them in situ.

New Chief for Egyptology Museum in Berlin

Originally published June 26, 2009 | Earth Times

Earth Times announces in this short article that Friederike Seyfried will replace Dietrich Wildung at the end of this month as the new chief of the Berlin Museum. Click the above link for more information.

Calling the Queen's Authenticity Into Question

Originally published May 21, 2009 Spiegel Online by Christoph Seidler

This article follows Henri Stierlin's theory that the Nefertiti bust in the Berlin Museum is a fake, built 100 years ago and whose purpose he believes its finder withheld from the world.

Even though his friends doubt Stierlin's theory, he counteracts any proof of Nefertiti's authenticity, with contamination and advanced reproduction techniques even 100 years ago being his evidence.