DO MUSEUMS PLAY A ROLE IN UNDOING COLONIALISM?
In Hindsight: Deciphering the origins of Egyptian artifacts can lead to difficult choices for cultural institutions.
The past few years have seen a swell of debate in the public sphere over which monuments in public spaces should be removed and which should stay. But simultaneously, another debate over monuments has been gaining momentum: what to do about artifacts inside the halls of museums that may have been acquired illegally, unethically, or through legacies of colonialism?
Take The Metropolitan Museum of Art as one example. In February 2019, the Met announced that it had returned the gilded coffin of Nedjemankh to the Government of Egypt. Purchased in 2017, the coffin had been the feature of a special exhibit since July 2018, and had drawn nearly 450,000 visitors. But an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office revealed the artifact had been looted in 2011. It was sold on the antiquities market with fake documents, including a forged 1971 Egyptian exportation license. Upon learning the truth, the president of the Met, Daniel Weiss, issued an apology to the Government and people of Egypt. The Met is now reviewing and revising its acquisitions processes.
This coffin of Nedjemankh appears to be a cut-and-dried case. Other cases, such as the bust of Nefertiti, now housed in the Neues Museum in Berlin, are murkier. Nefertiti’s likeness was created c.1340 BCE by the royal sculptor Thutmose at the site of Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. The bust was originally made as a sculptor’s model from limestone and plaster and was then painted; today it is the Neues Museum’s best-known masterpiece. Standing 47 cm high, the life-size bust of the queen is painted in bright jewel colors and displays a woman with a majestic beauty. Her portrait shows fine folds under the eyes and chin and slightly sunken cheeks. Her one remaining eye is inlaid with crystal and the pupil attached with black wax.
Nefertiti was the Chief Royal Wife and possible co-regent of the “heretic” king Akhenaten during the Amarna Period (c.1353–1336 BCE). Her extraordinary visibility derived from the fact that she appeared on monuments as an equal to her husband, in intimate family scenes and in strong masculine poses displaying her strength. Her moniker as the most beautiful woman in the world, helps to explain popular enthusiasm behind a recent attempt to find her tomb inside the tomb of King Tutankhamun. She is a significant figure in Egypt’s national history.
Yet the provenance of Nefertiti’s bust is entangled with legacies of colonialism. Discovered on December 6, 1912 by Ludwig Borchardt of the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft), German representatives then and now have claimed that the bust was part of a legal division of finds decided on between Borchardt and Egyptian officials on January 20, 1913. But the story is not that straightforward.
Egypt had been a British Protectorate since 1882. Foreign holders of excavation licences issued by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities shared each season’s discoveries; this policy kept unique finds in Egypt while still rewarding sponsors for their financial support. According to German accounts, the Tell el-Amarna finds were listed in two columns and it was up to an inspector to choose which artifacts Egypt would keep. The French inspector, Lefebvre, did not choose the list in the right column that was headed by the bust of Nefertiti, nor did he transfer it to Egypt’s list of artifacts. Borchardt claimed that the bust was on the list of antiquities to be removed from the country and that a photo of the bust was shown to an inspector working for the Department of Antiquities, who approved the list. This resulted in the ownership of the bust falling to James Simon, the financier of Borchardt’s dig. On July 7, 1920, Simon bequeathed the bust to the National Museum of Berlin, leading the Germans to assert that they acquired the bust legitimately.
German representatives have claimed that the bust of Nefertiti was part of a legal division of finds. Yet the precise chain of custody of the valuable archaeological discovery remains unclear more than 100 years later.
During the Second World War, the Nazi government hid Nefertiti’s bust for safe keeping, but in the war’s aftermath the Egyptian objects were returned to Berlin and the collection broken into two parts, split between East and West Berlin. After German reunification the Egyptian Museum reunited its artifacts at their original location in the reconstructed Neues Museum. Today, the bust of Nefertiti sits in its own room and draws over a million views annually.
Should this Egyptian artifact remain in Berlin? The Egyptian government does not think so. Egypt has formally asked Berlin to return the bust of Nefertiti, embedding its argument within a broader history of antiquities acquisitions. Near Eastern archaeology began, to some, as “treasure hunting.” Western interest in Ancient Egypt was inspired by the publication of Le Description de L’Egypte, the collection of drawings and research done by Napoleon’s scientists and scholars in the early part of the 19th century, the deciphering of hieroglyphs in 1822, and the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. Though it has morphed into an academic discipline over the past 170 years, it remains entangled with issues of cultural appropriation.
These issues were already emerging in 1924, when Germany’s public display of the Nefertiti bust led Pierre Lacau, the director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, to request its repatriation. In 2003 Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (now the Ministry of State for Antiquities), launched an eight-year campaign to bring back antiquities that had been removed from Egypt during the colonial era. Hawass believes Nefertiti’s bust was smuggled out of the country illegally in 1913 and should now be returned. Although the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is aware of the legal and ethical questions surrounding the ownership of the bust and other pieces in its Egyptian collection, its leadership continues to assert legal ownership of this piece.
It is possible that the bust is too fragile to be returned. It is also possible that Nefertiti remains Egypt’s best ambassador — even in Berlin.
Nefertiti’s bust has become a cultural symbol of Germany and an object of pride for the city of Berlin. Her bust not only generates income for the Neues Museum, but also initiates viewers to the treasures of ancient Egypt and invokes an appreciation for that culture’s past. It is indeed possible that the bust is too fragile to be returned, as the Germans claim. It is also possible that Nefertiti remains Egypt’s best ambassador — even in Berlin.
The questions before museums today about such artifacts are evidence of how unsettled events from previous eras still permeate issues in 2019. The question of what to do with artifacts from former colonial territories now prominently displayed within the borders of their colonizers is not an issue that ended with the collapse of the colonial period. Archaeologists and historians have a role to play in clarifying the narratives, shedding light on the past, and if need be, complicating matters of possession and expropriation, even at the risk of alienating governments or institutions. Each stakeholder has differing claims to the past derived from differing perspectives and agendas. Resolving the dilemmas from previous eras in an ethical and honest fashion has potential to prevent new problems from arising in the future.
Kelly-Anne Diamond is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Villanova University
NOTES
Bust of Nefertiti chain of possession: 1340 BCE Tell el-Amarna — Discovered Dec. 6, 1912 — James Simon allocated bust in division of finds 1913 — donated by Simon to the State of Prussia on July 7, 1920 — title transferred to Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1957 (because it was owned before 1945).
