False Image Of Queen Nefertiti

Her false image is literally everywhere. It can even be found on stamps and paper money in the

Arab world. One would have to believe, from all this exposure, this fame, that she was the

quintessential Ancient Egyptian queen. The epitome of the Ancient Egyptian lady of

antiquity. Small problem though, she doesn't look Egyptian! She doesn't even look like the

other portraits we have of her - the ones we rarely see. In fact she looks like a white woman!

Strange? Well, so is the story behind this famous bust:

 

A German excavator by the name of Ludwig Borchardt 'discovered' the painted limestone

bust in 1912. (The same year Charles Dawson 'discovered' the fake - British missing link - the

Piltdown man. This hoax lasted 40 years.) The circumstances of its export to the Berlin

museum were the source of controversy at the time. (Some suggested that Borchardt did a

little of the painting himself.) It did not go on exhibit until 1924!

One is immediately reminded of the fake Egyptian figure of Tetisheri, Queen mother of the

17th and 18th dynasties, which also did not look Egyptian (IE, Black African) . It too, looked

like a white woman. The figure was part of an exhibit held by the British museum in 1990.

The exhibit was titled "Fake? The Art Of Deception." The Testisheri hoax lasted 100 years.

Is the Berlin bust also a hoax? Inquiring minds want to know...and inquiring minds are

finding evidence...

Is this Nefertiti – or a 100-year-old fake?

quote:

Her elegant and chiselled features (IE, looks like a White woman) held proud and

high on a swanlike neck, she has been smiling serenely for 3,400 years. At least that has long

been the popular and scientific belief that draws half a million tourists to see her in Berlin

every year.

But now doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of the painted limestone and plaster

bust of the 18th dynasty Egyptian queen Nefertiti by two authors who claim she is a fake.

According to a Swiss art historian, the bust is less than 100 years old. Henri Stierlin has said

the stunning work that will later this year be the showpiece of the city's reborn Neues

Museum was created by an artist commissioned by Ludwig Borchardt, the German

archaeologist credited with digging Nefertiti out of the sands of the ancient settlement of

Amarna, 90 miles south of Cairo, in 1912.

In his book, Le Buste de Nefertiti – une Imposture de l'Egyptologie? (The Bust of Nefertiti –

an Egyptology Fraud?), Stierlin has claimed that the bust was created to test ancient

pigments. But after it was admired by a Prussian prince, Johann Georg, who was beguiled by

Nefertiti's beauty, Borchardt, said Stierlin, "didn't have the nerve to make his guest look

stupid" and pretended it was genuine.

Berlin author and historian Edrogan Ercivan has added his weight to the row with his book

Missing Link in Archaeology, published last week, in which he has also called Nefertiti a fake,

modelled by an artist on Borchardt's statuesque wife.

Public and political enthusiasm about the find at the time gave the artefact its "own dynamic"

and led to Borchardt ensuring it was kept out of the public gaze until 1924, the authors have

argued.

He kept it in his living room for the next 11 years before handing it over to a Berlin museum,

since when it has been one of the city's main tourist attractions.

The statue was famously admired by Adolf Hitler, who referred to it as "a unique

masterpiece, an ornament, a true treasure".

Recent radiological tests carried out on the statue by Berlin's Charite hospital supposedly

proved that the bust is indeed more than 3,000 years old. The tests uncovered a hidden face

carved into the statue's limestone core. But Stierlin has argued that while it is possible to

carbon date the pigments, which appear to be ancient Egyptian, it is impossible to accurately

date the bust because it is made of stone covered in plaster.

Other aspects of the find, which he has claimed support his theory, are the facts that the bust

has no left eye, which the ancient Egyptians would have considered a sign of disrespect

towards their much-loved queen, and that the first scientific reports on the discovery were

not written up for 11 years.

Borchardt's diary entries remain the main written account of the find. He wrote: "Suddenly

we had in our hands the most alive Egyptian artwork. You cannot describe it with words. You

must see it."

But Dietrich Wildung, the director of Berlin's Egyptian Museum, where Nefertiti is currently

housed, has fiercely dismissed the allegations as an attempt to exploit the bust's popularity.

"A beautiful woman and a putative scandal," he said. "That always sells."

He said the claims could easily be dismissed because of the detailed computer tomography

and material analyses that had been carried out on Nefertiti.

In October, the bust is due to be moved back into the Neues Museum, which has been

reconstructed from its war-torn remains by British architect David Chipperfield, and where

Nefertiti was last on display 70 years ago. She is to hold court over a long gallery in the north

cupola, where she will be set on a specially constructed pedestal.

Over the decades Germany has rejected repeated requests from Egypt for her return.