"You've Had Her Long Enough": Egypt Says It's Time for Nefertiti to Come Home
SOURCE:Spiegel International
With the Grand Egyptian Museum now finished in Giza, pressure is mounting on Germany to finally return the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti. Berlin says it was acquired legally. But that argument isn't persuading the Egyptians.
From afar, the Grand Egyptian Museum looks like a curtain made of tiny glass pyramids. The alabaster-and-glass façade stretches through the Giza desert and lends the real pyramids a dramatic new frame – as if a pharaoh had strayed into the 21st century and whispered an assignment to the architects: "Both tradition and modernity, please.”
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 45/2025 (October 30th, 2025) of DER SPIEGEL.
Nagwa Taimour, 22, is waiting in the entrance hall, Ramses II rising 11 meters into the air behind her. "May I introduce my great-great-great-great-grandfather,” the activist says in welcome, looking up at the stone ruler. Like so many of her compatriots, she sees herself as a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptians. The 3,200-year-old statue of red granite is perched on a pedestal surrounded by water. Both look resolute, as if it were only a matter of time before something momentous takes place.
The World Looks to Egypt
The Grand Egyptian Museum, the GEM, is Egypt’s counterpart to Berlin’s BER airport. The grand opening of all its rooms was postponed countless times, most recently in mid-June due to Israel’s attack on Iran. Opening day, though, finally did take place on the first day of November – with President Abdel Fatteh el-Sisi hosting heads of state, royals and figures from culture, science and business. The world looked to Egypt.
A large statue of Ramses II greets visitors as they enter the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).
Foto: Rehab Eldalil / DER SPIEGEL
More than 100,000 artifacts from the Pharaonic, Hellenistic and Roman periods are now on display at the GEM, telling the story of more than 7,000 years of Egyptian history. Among the giants: Queen Hatshepsut and the pharaohs Akhenaten, Khufu, and Tutankhamun, along with golden death mask, throne and chariot.
One of them, however, is missing: Queen Nefertiti, the Egyptian ruler with the swan’s neck, almond-shaped eyes and blue crown.
The 3,400-year-old limestone bust has been in the possession of German state museums for more than one hundred years. And the dispute over the treasure has been raging for roughly just as long. Today, it belongs to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and it has been on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin since 2009.
Message to the West
Nagwa Taimour studied art and history at university. Together with others, she has decided to do what she can to bring the queen back. Almost every week, she braves Cairo’s chaotic traffic to collect signatures for a petition at the museum. Nearly 120,000 people have signed thus far.
Activist Nagwa Taimour.
Foto: Dunja Ramadan / DER SPIEGEL
Many in Egypt also see the museum as a message to the West: We value our heritage and take good care of it. An argument from the past century – that Egyptian cultural assets are better preserved in European museums than in Egyptian ones – no longer applies, say Egyptologists, diplomats, artists and activists.
Taimour has been interested in the ancient Egyptians since childhood and is currently learning hieroglyphs – she can already write her name. For her, the world-famous bust is more than just a popular museum attraction in distant Germany: Nefertiti stands for stolen history, national identity and the claim to one’s own cultural heritage. That the queen continues to reside in Berlin strikes the young Egyptian as unjust. "You’ve had her long enough. It is time for her to come home,” says Taimour. She herself has never been to Berlin. "It’s not exactly easy to get a visa.”
Nefertiti Was More than Just a Beauty
The real Nefertiti was known not only for her immaculate beauty but also for her political influence. As the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, she ruled Egypt in the 14th century B.C. Together, the couple broke with the millennia-old polytheistic culture and established Aten as the only deity worthy of worship – an early form of monotheism, researchers say today.
The Nefertiti bust immediately after its discovery in 1912.
Foto: akg-images
Nefertiti’s present-day fame, however, is primarily the result of the discovery of her bust at the Egyptian archeological site of Tell el-Amarna in 1912. Since then, there have been repeated demands for her return, often quietly, in diplomatic circles, the first coming in the early 1920s. Taimour is betting on the power of the masses. "Now, it is time for the Egyptian people to speak.”
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, by contrast, has stuck to its guns for decades: Nefertiti’s bust, they say, came to Berlin legally in 1913 in the course of an excavation – an orderly "division of finds,” the term used for a system that splits finds equally between foreign excavation teams and the host country.
The Mona Lisa of Berlin
At the time of the find, Egypt was not a sovereign state, it was under British control – and the antiquities administration was under French leadership. It was, in other words, up to French officials to decide which cultural assets could leave the country. "Does legal also mean just?” asks German historian Sebastian Conrad, 59, author of the book "The Making of a Global Icon: Nefertiti’s Twentieth-Century Career,” which was nominated for the German Nonfiction Prize in 2024. "Archaeology was imperialism by other means,” he says. Today, no country in the world would accept half of its archaeological finds being carted off to foreign museums.
Nefertiti, though, is more than just a museum exhibit for the German capital as well. She is the Mona Lisa of Berlin, the star of Museum Island. About half a million visitors are thought to come each year to see her.
Nefertiti poster on the side of a building in Cairo.
Foto: Rehab Eldalil / DER SPIEGEL
But Nefertiti is omnipresent in Egypt as well. On EgyptAir flights, she smiles up from the customs form. In Cairo, she is emblazoned on gigantic posters affixed to the ocher-colored sides of buildings next to full clotheslines and humming air conditioners. She can be purchased on keychains and tablecloths in the bustling markets of the vast metropolis with its 23 million residents.
“That such a thing is still allowed in 2025."
Egyptian museum visitor.
The demands for Nefertiti’s return being made by Taimour and her fellow campaigners amount to a rejection of the old logic of ownership adhered to by the great powers of Europe. They are a reflection of a global rethink – and of a generation that demands rather than asks.
Back in the GEM, Taimour heads toward a group of Egyptian women entering the museum with their children. She gives them a brief moment to take in the awe-inspiring entrance area before introducing herself and asking: "Are you familiar with Nefertiti?” "Of course,” comes the reply. "Did you know that she is in Germany?” "Yes, unbelievable,” says one of the women. Another raises her eyebrows as if she has just learned a dirty secret.
Nagwa Taimour with visitors in the new Grand Egyptian Museum.
Foto: Dunja Ramadan / DER SPIEGEL
Taimour gives the women a brief biography of the Nefertiti bust: discovered in 1912 in Tell el-Amarna, about 300 kilometers south of Cairo, by the German Oriental Society under the leadership of Ludwig Borchardt. It was then taken out of Egypt and spent eight years in the possession of James Simon, the Berlin patron and financier of the excavations. Nefertiti initially belonged to him personally: He kept her in his villa on Tiergartenstrasse. Simon then donated the artwork to the Berlin museums in 1920. It has been on display since 1924.
The women are outraged. "That such a thing is still allowed in 2025,” says one. Seconds later, they have signed the petition. "Enjoy the museum!” Taimour calls after them.
The next day, Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s best-known and most controversial archaeologist, receives his guest in his office. Medals, prizes and photos hang in the hallway, one showing him brushing dust off a sarcophagus. Another shows him smiling up from the cover of Time magazine: "The Guardian of Egypt’s Antiquities,” reads the headline. Opposite his desk stands a replica of Nefertiti. His hair white and his voice roughened by nicotine, it was Hawass who initiated the petition for which Taimour is hitting the streets.
![Egyptologist Zahy Hawass: "Europeans are the biggest thieves in the world."](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/3d9cdf07-6b9f-4d0e-8b04-f54c6801bbc6_w488_r1.5_fpx56_fpy50.jpg "Egyptologist Zahy Hawass: "Europeans are the biggest thieves in the world."")
Egyptologist Zahy Hawass: "Europeans are the biggest thieves in the world."
Foto: Rehab Eldalil / DER SPIEGEL
For years, the former secretary-general of the Egyptian antiquities administration has been beating the drum for the restitution of Nefertiti. He is viewed critically by many in Egypt for his years of close cooperation with the regime of Hosni Mubarak. They accuse him of corruption and wasting public funds.
Nefertiti means: "The Beautiful One Has Come”
Yet during his tenure, Hawass succeeded in bringing several archaeological objects back to Egypt. In 2009, the Louvre returned ancient Egyptian frescoes stolen in the 1980s near Luxor – a success that only came about after Egypt threatened to break off relations with the Louvre.
Now, with the new museum, the time is ripe for Nefertiti’s return, Hawass believes. That is why he launched the "national campaign” a year ago. His goal is 1 million signatures. Nefertiti translates roughly as: "The beautiful one has come.” Hawass: "And she will come.”
He says he has slowly had enough of German excuses, and he lights a cigar. "Nefertiti is an icon. Her natural place of residence is Egypt.”
Time and again, he says, the German side has claimed that Nefertiti is an ambassador for Egyptian art. "Ambassadors return home eventually. And where is your German queen, whom we unfortunately can no longer return to you?” he asks.
"Life-sized painted bust of the queen, 47 cm. high. (…) Colors as if paint was just applied. Work absolutely exceptional. Description is useless, must be seen."
Ludwig Borchardt, Egyptologist
Plus, he says, according to the concession contract of 1911 between the Egyptian antiquities administration and the German financier, James Simon, it was clear that masterpieces considered unique were supposed to remain in the country. Hawass works himself into a rage. "This Borchardt guy cheated in the division of finds. Europeans are the biggest thieves in the world.”
In response to an inquiry from DER SPIEGEL, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation contradicts this account. "The division of finds was carried out properly and is comprehensively documented. There were not only excellent object photographs available, but the representative of the Egyptian administration also had the opportunity to inspect the objects.”
Conrad, the historian, though, says it wasn’t quite as transparent as depicted by Berlin. In his book, he quotes from Borchardt’s excavation report, according to which the archeologist immediately recognized just how sensational his find was: a "life-sized painted bust of the queen, 47 cm. high. (…) Colors as if paint was just applied. Work absolutely exceptional. Description is useless, must be seen.”
There is, Conrad says, speculation that the excavation team concealed the bust’s beauty beneath a layer of dirt. "But there is no evidence for this. What we do know is that Borchardt had the finds packed in crates prior to the division of finds and that the representative of the Egyptian side was shown only photographs,” Conrad says. And "not exactly the most flattering ones,” as one eyewitness reported. "But, I mean,” the eyewitness added, "surely no excavator is obliged to foist the beauty of his finds upon the commissioner.”
Ceremonial Farewell
On the eve of the division of finds, the Germans took leave of the bust in a ceremonial candlelit ritual, says Conrad, adding: "They assumed they would not be able to keep Nefertiti.”
Historian Sebastian Conrad.
Foto: Martin Funck
How Ludwig Borchardt ultimately managed to bring the bust to Germany has not yet been clarified. It has been definitively established, however, that he prevented Nefertiti from being show publicly for several years out of concern that Egypt might demand its return.
“We need a critical debate about how free the Egyptians were back then to decide which treasures should remain in the country and which should not."
Sebastian Conrad, historian
"We aren’t going to get any further with Sherlock Holmes – with detective methods in an attempt to find out exactly how the division of finds was conducted. Instead, we must rely on some basic considerations,” says Conrad. You have to look at the structural conditions of the time, he believes. "When German institutions invoke the division of finds and say it conformed to the law of the time and was therefore legal, they are tacitly perpetuating those hierarchies,” Conrad says. "We need a critical debate about how free the Egyptians were back then to decide which treasures should remain in the country and which should not.”
The debate over Nefertiti is also quite emotional in Germany, Conrad points out. Guests at his readings, he says, have said rather dramatic things, he says: "I’ve even heard people say they would chain themselves to the museum to prevent Nefertiti’s return.”
Throughout recent history, he says, Nefertiti has been the focus of a number of different notions. "After World War I, Germany felt isolated internationally. Exhibiting Nefertiti in Berlin was good for national self-confidence,” Conrad says.
Beyoncé with a Golden Pharaoh Crown
As early as the 18th century, German Idealism elevated Rome and ancient Greece as part of Germany’s prehistory. "The appropriation of Egypt is the logical extension of that line of thinking,” Conrad says. "It also had a racist dimension. Many scholars, archaeologists, and Egyptologists were convinced that the impressive achievements of ancient Egypt were only possible as the product of a white civilization.”
When Nefertiti was first introduced to the Berlin public in 1924, it caused a sensation.
International competition was also part of it: Two years earlier, the British had found the tomb of the legendary Tutankhamun, fueling international Egyptomania. The German public proudly countered with the beauty from Tell el-Amarna.
These days, Egypt’s President el-Sisi is seeking to revive the myths of the pharaonic era. Critics see in it a strategy to legitimize his own power and that of the military, and to bolster nationalism in an attempt to distract from the economic and social problems facing the country, the most populous in the Arab world.
And then there is the modern-day Nefertiti – embodied by Beyoncé. In 2018 the Black singer from the U.S. presented herself with a golden pharaoh crown and a cape displaying the bust – an amalgamation of African American pop culture and ancient Egyptian symbolism. That same year, the singer visited Nefertiti at the Berlin museum.
Those who follow in Beyoncé’s footsteps to visit the millennia-old bust at the Neues Museum are transfixed by the colors of the queen, as if the artist had just laid down the brush. She stands completely alone in a high-security glass case in the North Dome Hall. Subtle light effects emphasize her fine facial features, the graceful neck, the perfect eyeliner. Visitors whisper reverently.
The bust of Nefertiti: beautiful and influential
Foto: United Archives International / IMAGO
She is surrounded by original wall paintings from the 19th century: muscular heroes of Greco-Roman antiquity battling beasts, battling humans, a decapitation. It is a setting that once again highlights Nefertiti’s place in the German psyche: She is not surrounded by Egyptian art, but by European.
There has been no serious political debate in Germany about a return of Nefertiti. The most recent considerations of a possible came from the Nazis: In 1933, Reich Aviation Minister Hermann Göring thought the return of the bust could win Egypt’s allegiance. Adolf Hitler tapped the brakes. "I will never give up the head of the queen. It is a masterpiece, a jewel, a true treasure,” he apparently said. Instead, Hitler allegedly planned to exhibit Nefertiti as a centerpiece in Berlin – or, in his vision, "Germania,” the glorious capital he intended to construct.
“I will look at her when she is back in Egypt."
Zahi Hawass, archeologist
In the 1950s, Egyptian head of state Gamal Abdel Nasser put the issue back on the agenda. His education minister demanded that "every single piece of Egyptian history” be brought back.
When archaeologist Hawass, the former head of the antiquities administration, was recently in Berlin, he says he refused to visit Nefertiti. "I will look at her when she is back in Egypt,” he says defiantly.
Archeologist Zahy Hawass is convinced that Nefertiti will return to Egypt.
Foto: Rehab Eldalil / DER SPIEGEL
Germany Returned Benin Statues to Nigeria in 2022
He believes there is more at stake when it comes to Nefertiti. Should she be returned, it could become the first of a number of dominoes, he believes, putting entire European collections at risk.
Over the course of several decades, politicians from Nigeria, Greece and Turkey demanded the return of central cultural assets, mostly in vain. Only rarely did European countries budge: In 2011, for example, the Sphinx of Boğazkale went back to Turkey as a "voluntary gesture of German-Turkish friendship” following years of pressure. In 2022, Germany began returning Benin statues to Nigeria – as an act of reparation for colonial art theft.
A few kilometers outside Cairo, Hossam Dirar brings Nefertiti from the past into the present. The 46-year-old artist lives in New Giza, a building complex rising out of the desert, with manicured green spaces and artificial lakes.
Artist Hossam Dirar: He discovered his roots abroad.
Foto: Rehab Eldalil / DER SPIEGEL
Surrounded by sketches, color palettes, coffee cups and ashtrays, Dirar is sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Oil paintings are stacked up in the background, showing Nefertiti in a variety of new roles: As a diva, for example, with bare shoulders, sometimes even without her blue crown, colorful thought bubbles floating over her head instead. Or as a femme fatale in high heels. "I want to show her as a modern Egyptian woman,” Dirar says. He sells his works internationally.
Nefertiti Appears in His Visions
Dirar’s fascination with Nefertiti is rooted in his background: In 2014, he emigrated to Spain and people there were constantly asking him about his origins. "Wow, Egypt – how magical. The pharaohs, the pyramids!” they would say. Dirar saw himself for the first time through others’ eyes and realized how little he knew about his homeland’s history.
Again and again, as he describes it, an image began appearing to him during meditation: a pharaoh queen, all in white, reaching her hand out to him. "What are you afraid of? Come with me! You are from here,” she would tell him, he says. In his visions, he would travel by boat along the Nile, admiring the temples. And in the distance, he says, he recognized the figure of Nefertiti.
Dirar says that from then on, he began reading everything he could find about Nefertiti and her husband Akhenaten. The royal couple founded a new capital and Nefertiti played the role of an equal partner. Reliefs show her on the chariot, striking down enemies. "That is what I wish for today’s women of Egypt. A strong, equal role in society.”
“It felt to me like I was visiting my grandmother, and a stranger was telling me how I was to greet her – and was charging admission on top of it.”
Hossam Dirar, artist
In ancient Egyptian reliefs, Nefertiti is depicted unusually intimately and lovingly with her children. "You get the feeling you are looking at a family’s photo album. They wanted to develop a bond with the population,” Dirar says.
The Egyptian pharoah Akhenaten with Nefertiti and three daughters.
Foto: United Archives International / IMAGO
One relief shows the couple with three daughters, one playfully reaching out to her father Akhenaten’s chin, another sitting on Nefertiti’s lap. "Today we would say the two were a power couple. They supported each other.”
Tears before Nefertiti
In 2015 Dirar traveled to Berlin. When he saw Nefertiti, alone in the great hall, he says he had to cry. The colors, the perfection, the lifelike depiction – Dirar shakes his head in disbelief.
Artist Hossam Dirar depicts Nefertiti as a modern Egyptian woman.
Foto: Rehab Eldalil / DER SPIEGEL
He wanted to capture the moment, but a museum employee reprimanded him, he says: No photos. For Dirar, it felt wrong. "It felt to me like I was visiting my grandmother, and a stranger was telling me how I was to greet her – and was charging admission on top of it.” Since that day, he has hardly painted anything else.
Hours later, an EgyptAir plane lifts off toward Germany. The new safety video is set in the halls of the Grand Egyptian Museum. Among the statues and sarcophagi, the crew fastens seat belts and inflates life vests. It is as if the country is whispering to its guests at the last minute: Don’t forget where you were. You are leaving a great civilization.
And Nefertiti? She is nowhere to be seen. Not yet, as the Egyptians would say.
