Nefertiti lived in the fourteenth century BC, the wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, one of the kings of the eighteenth dynasty in ancient Egypt.  Akhenaten called for a new religion called the Atonian religion, calling for the unification of the worship of the sun disk Aten.  Not much is known about Nefertiti, but there are theories that she was a royal, a foreign princess, or the daughter of a high-ranking government official named Ay, who became pharaoh after Tutankhamun.  It is certain that she was the wife of Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt from 1352 BC to 1336 BC.  Nefertiti gave birth to six daughters to Akhenaten, one of whom is Ankhesenaten (later known as Ankhesenamun), Tutankhamun's wife.  Nefertiti disappeared from history in the twelfth year of Akhenaten's reign, possibly due to her death or because she had taken a new, unknown name.  Some also claimed that she ruled for a brief period after her husband's death.

 Discover the statue

 On December 6, 1912, a German archaeological excavation led by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt found a statue of Nefertiti in Tell el-Amarna, in the workshop of the Egyptian sculptor "Thutmose", in which a number of unfinished busts of Nefertiti were also found.  Borchardt described the discovery in his diary, saying:

    The Nefertiti Statue Suddenly, we have in our hands the best surviving Egyptian artwork.  It can't be described in words, you have to see it.  Nefertiti statue

 In 1924, in the archives of the German Oriental Company (which had undertaken the excavation) a document was found about a meeting on January 20, 1913 between Ludwig Borchardt and a high-ranking Egyptian official to discuss the division of archaeological finds found in 1912 between Germany and Egypt.  According to the General Secretary of the German Oriental Company (the author of the document, who was present at the meeting), Borchardt was determined to have the statue for the Germans.  It is suspected that Borchardt may have concealed the true value of the bust, although he denies it.

 Philip Vandenberg, in The Times, considered the statue among the 10 most famous looted artifacts.  Borchardt showed the Egyptian official a poorly lit picture of the statue, and the statue was hidden in a box when the Inspector General of Egyptian Antiquities "Gustav Lefebvre" visited for inspection.  The document revealed that Borchardt had claimed the statue was made of plaster, to mislead the inspector.  The German East Company blamed the inspector's negligence, noting that the statue was at the top of the zoning list, and that the agreement was fair.

 statue in germany

 Berlin's new museum where the statue rested.

 The statue arrived in Germany in 1913, where it was shipped to Berlin, and presented to "Henry James Simon", the antiquities dealer and financier of the Amarna excavations.  The statue remained with Simon until he loaned the statue and other artifacts found in the Amarna excavations to the Berlin Museum.  Although the rest of the Amarna collection has been on display since 1913, the bust of Nefertiti has been kept secret at Borchardt's request.  In 1918, those responsible for