CAIRO: Zahi Hawas, the Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that the Director of the Berlin Museum will come to Cairo on December 8 to negotiate the possibility of restoring or loaning the head of Pharaonic Queen Nefertiti to “it's rightful owner.” The museum representatives are expected to provide all documents proving the statue's head was taken out of Egypt legally. However, Hawass believes it was illegally removed from Egyptian soil and plans to prove the right of Egypt to restore the statue to the country. Hawass said, in remarks on the sidelines of celebrations for the opening of the Howard Carter commemorative hall in Luxor, that in addition to preparing for the Berlin Museum's visit, he will dispatch an archaeological committee to the Louvre Museum by the end of this month to recover the five paintings after the approval of France to return them to Egypt after proving they were taken illegally from the country. (see also “The Hawass Code”) The crisis between Germany and Egypt over the head of Queen Nefertiti was sparked again after Germany's Der Spiegel and The Times of England revealed a secret document indicating that German archaeologist, Ludwig Borchardt deceived the Egyptians in the early twentieth century over the historical fact of the statue of Nefertiti, and then transported it illegally to Germany. The reports include the actual document – available in the archives of the Eastern German Institute in Berlin – and also includes information that Borchardt, who was among the scientific mission specializing in the exploration of antiquities in Egypt, deceived the Egyptian authorities about the historical value of the real statue of Nefertiti and consequently transferred it from Egypt to the German capital in 1913. According to German papers, the contents of the classified document, which is dated to 1924, contains information that there was a meeting held between a senior Egyptian official and the German archaeologist, who found the statue of Nefertiti in 1912 in Tel el-Amarna, the capital city of Pharaoh Akhenaton, Nefertiti's husband, where the Secretary General of the East German Association participated in the meeting. They then announced that a number of pieces that were found during excavations were the rightful property of both nations, equally. But, instead of sharing the artifacts, the German archaeologist removed and took the statue and other pieces from the dig back to Germany following the meeting. The document says that Borchardt wanted to keep the statue of Nefertiti and not to share it with the Egyptian side, and for this purpose he provided the Egyptian side a photo that does not show the statue well. The document released by the German newspaper noted that Borchardt misled the Egyptian inspectors by telling them that the statue of Nefertiti was made of gypsum, while it is actually made from limestone. After the disclosure of such information, Hawass said that Egypt will do its best to restore the statue of Nefertiti from Germany, “if the credibility of this document is proven.” Egypt had demanded in the 1930s that Germany return the statue. It was the first time Egypt had made the demand. Germany refused. In recent years recovering the statue of Nefertiti has been at the top of Hawass' list of artifacts outside Egypt that should be returned. **reporting by Mohamed Abdel Salam BM
