Nefertite centenary exhibition

The special exhibition to celebrate the centenary of the finding of the bust of Nefertite opens at Berlin’s Neues Museum on 6 December.

The exhibition, called “In the Light of Amarna. 1000 years of the Nefertite Discovery”, focuses on life in the ancient city of Akhetaton (known today as Tell el-Amarna) built by Pharaoh Akhetaton (died about 1,336 BC) for the worship of the god Aton.

The exhibition displays objects from the museum’s own collection as well as objects from other museums in Berlin and abroad, many of which have not been seen before. Loans are coming from Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre and the British Museum.

The bust of Nefertite, the wife of Akhetaton, was discovered during the Ludwig Borchardt excavations in 1912 and 1913 when over 7,000 objects were unearthed.

Egypt has asked for the return of Nefertite’s bust on the grounds that it was exported fraudulently.

The Neues Museum, which was badly damaged in world war two, was redesigned and restored by David Chipperfield and reopened to the public in October 2009.