BERLIN // Germany regards the exquisite painted bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti as one of its national treasures, and Egypt's dreams that she will return home one day - even on loan - are unlikely to come true.
The 3,350-year old artwork, discovered by German archaeologists in 1912, is the foremost piece in the city's recently rebuilt cultural showpiece, the Neues Museum, where she attracted 1.2 million visitors last year. She is to the German capital what the Mona Lisa is to Paris, only more so. Her startlingly timeless beauty and grace are appreciated all the more in this often grey city that still bears the scars of war.
So it came as no surprise that German officials swiftly and firmly rejected the latest demand on Monday by Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, that the bust be handed back. They denied his claim that a top German archaeologist had obtained Nefertiti by cheating Egyptian officials.
A spokesman for Bernd Neumann, the German culture minister, said on Monday: "Documents clearly prove that the Prussian state obtained the bust of Nefertiti legally and that Egypt has no legal claim to it."
German officials insisted that Mr Hawass' letter did not amount to a formal request by the Egyptian government.
Hermann Parzinger, the president of Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which manages Berlin's state-run museums, said the letter had not been signed by the Egyptian prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, and was therefore not official.
"The bust is and remains Egypt's best ambassador in Berlin," said Mr Parzinger, adding vaguely that his foundation was drafting ideas for co-operation with Egypt and would be proposing them to Mr Hawass. That is unlikely to satisfy Egypt, which has been demanding the return of Nefertiti ever since she first went on display in Berlin in 1923.
Even the German foreign ministry got involved. A spokesman for Guido Westerwelle, the foreign minister, said tersely: "The German government's position is known and unchanged."
Mr Hawass said his request was backed by Mr Nazif and by the Egyptian culture minister, Faruq Hosni. He said Germany had obtained the bust under false pretences. Egyptian officials, Mr Hawass claimed, were misled about the significance of the bust in negotiations with German archaeologists.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement: "This request is a natural consequence of Egypt's long-standing policy of seeking the restitution of all archaeological and historical artefacts that have been taken illicitly out of the country."
Egypt's demand is part of a campaign to retrieve ancient Egyptian treasures taken by archaeological expeditions from European colonial powers in the 19th century and now on display in museums in Britain, France and the US. They include the Rosetta Stone, a stele covered in Egyptian and Greek writing which was discovered by Napoleon's soldiers in 1799 and which has helped to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It has been displayed by the British Museum in London since 1802.
The German Oriental Society, set up in 1898 to rival British and French archaeological finds in the Middle East, found the bust of Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaton, in 1912 during excavations in Amarna, some 300km south of Cairo. Nefertiti means "the beautiful one has come."
In January 1913, there was a meeting to divide the spoils of that expedition between Germany and Egypt on a 50-50 basis, as was standard practice at the time.
Two years ago, a written account of the negotiations surfaced that initially appeared to back Egypt's claim of deception. The record, written by a society secretary, said the German archaeologist, Ludwig Borchardt, tried to play down the beauty and importance of the bust in a meeting with Gustave Lefébvre, Egypt's inspector of antiquities.
Mr Borchardt falsely claimed that the bust was made of gypsum, when it in fact has a limestone core, according to the record. He also kept the light dimmed in the room at the society's headquarters in Amarna, made sure that the bust was wrapped in a cloth inside an opened crate, and refrained from showing the most advantageous photograph of Nefertiti.
But German officials have steadfastly maintained that everything was above board.
A chorus of media commentators, politicians and business and cultural leaders in the city insisted that Nefertiti had become a Berlin icon and must never be relinquished.
"She's a Berliner!" BZ a Berlin tabloid, said in a banner front page headline on Tuesday, adding: "The Egyptians just won't drop it. But Germany will remain hard - and the beautiful queen will remain in Berlin."
Christian Boros, an art collector and publisher, said giving the bust back "would be like tearing the heart out of Berlin's chest." Monika Grütters, chairwoman of the culture committee in the German parliament, said: "She will remain here. Egypt has no legal claim."
