"I Will Prove Nefertiti is Stolen"

Dr. Hawass really wants the bust back from Berlin, but unfortunately for him, a lazy official from Egypt's antiquities service gave it to the German excavation in 1912. Unfortunately, Berlin neglected to publish the masterpiece for 9 years, making its acquisition look very dubious.

With recent accusations by author Henri Stierlin about the bust being a fake created by the German excavator, who had a history of creating fakes, but in the summer of 2009, KMT, the suggestion that the royal family of King Akhenaten stelae JE 44863 in Cairo was actually a forgery to give an equal piece to justify the giving of the Nefertiti bust.

Adolf Erman, the excavator's teacher, described an incident in which Borchardt had caused an act of fraud: "thus he made a clay tablet which was completely akin to the authentic ones", "Borchardt put the tablet into a box with genuine tablets". That is not good, with both parties claiming that the two most important Amarna pieces "excavated" are one or the other, or both forgeries perpetrated by Borchardt.

Though I only see problems with the Cairo stelae, which provide an accurate picture is a nighttime scene of the royal family under the red Aten. I am left to wonder how many night depictions of the royal Amarna family exist? Though I do wonder if the Berlin bust has had its face and neck painted over by the excavator, or perhaps the others that followed.

The smells of fraud are not that helpful!