Could replicas play a part in the restitution of the Bust of Queen Nefertiti?

By Errol Francis (Artistic Director and CEO) and Chloe Asker (Research Fellow), Culture&.

Ethical polarisations in museums

Western museums have increasingly become sites for sharp ethical polarisation and political disagreement around issues like climate change, ethical sponsorship and colonial provenance of their collections. Through this turbulence and questioning of the legacy of colonialism and imperialism, activists and advocates are increasingly asking governments and heritage institutions to reckon with their imperial histories, to acknowledge the relationships between slavery, colonialism, capitalism, and repatriate cultural property looted during the colonial era. Replicas are emerging as an innovative solution to the restitution problem, evolving through advances in digital technology (e.g. 3D scanning, modelling, and printing) that allow for accurate copies of contested heritage. Culture& are exploring the ethical potential of the replica through a focus on the Bust of Queen Nefertiti.

The Nefertiti affair

It is within this context that debates have intensified regarding the controversial status and wider cultural significance of particular museum objects, a prime example of which is the fourteenth Century BCE Ancient Egyptian Bust of the 18th Dynasty Queen Nefertiti, Great Royal Wife and possibly co-regent of Pharaoh Akhenaten who ruled Egypt in the mid-fourteenth century BCE. Nefertiti is an icon of intangible heritage and identity, with African American cultural movements laying claim to her cultural identity since the 1930s (most recently Black global stars like Beyoncé and Rihanna have adopted Nefertiti’s aesthetic).

Egyptian Egyptologist, Dr Monica Hanna, has written extensively on the colonial appropriation exercised by Western archaeologists and museums over the retention of the Bust, which is currently held in the Neues Museum in Berlin. Hanna’s research supports the restitution and return of Nefertiti to Egypt as it attests to the unauthorised and illegal action by German Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt (1863-1938), who excavated the Bust in 1912 at Tell el-Amarna. Borchardt concealed the removal of the bust from Egypt in the process known as the ‘partage’, in which the archaeological finds were distributed to the national teams involved in the excavations. Furthermore, Hanna points out that the subsequent possession of the bust by James Simon, his initial ownership of it as his personal property and subsequent ‘donation’ to the Ägyptisches Museum (with the condition that it should be returned to Egypt if requested), as well as its continued retention, represents what some regard as an example of cultural imperialism.

Nefertiti is one of the world’s most beguiling and contested museum objects and long-running restitution sagas, sometimes referred to as the ‘Nefertiti Affair’. As such, the Egyptian authorities have been campaigning for the return of the Nefertiti Bust for much of the past century, soon after it was revealed to the world in 1923, and more recently the former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Dr Zahi Hawass, declaring unequivocally that Nefertiti is illegally held in Berlin and has demanded her return. Whilst the German government maintains its claim over the bust and denies that formal requests have been made, this is not a universally shared opinion across German politics. In late 2022, Berlin’s former State Secretary for Diversity and Anti-Discrimination, Saraya Gomis, spoke in favour of the repatriation of the Bust, which led to the Berlin Ministry of Justice reaffirming the German position and denying plans for repatriation. Yet Gomis’ statement came in the wake of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) in 2022 repatriating to Nigeria 514 Benin Bronzes held in Berlin's Ethnological Museum, which is part of the Humboldt Forum. The difference between the German government's willingness to repatriate the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria and their reluctance to return Nefertiti to Egypt reveals an ethical and legal inconsistency that may not be sustainable in the longer term.

The turn of the replica

Photography is not allowed in the Neues Museum’s North Dome Room, in which the Bust of Queen Nefertiti is now housed as its sole exhibit. Yet, in 2015, as part of an intervention that became known as The Other Nefertiti, two artists, Jan Nikolai Nelles and Nora Al-Badri, claimed they had made an unauthorised copy of the bust by means of a covert 3D scan of the Nefertiti bust using a hand-held device – on grounds that the museum had unfairly restricted public access to images of the object – and they published the scan’s metadata online.

Following this intervention, there was a freedom of information request to the Staatliche Museen Berlin (of which the Neues Museum is a part) by activist Cosmo Wenman who believes ‘museums and private collectors should make 3D scans of important public domain [art]works freely available to the public.’ After his 2016-19 Freedom of Information challenge to the Museum, Wenman was able to obtain the release of the full authorised 3D scanning data which he has since posted online for anyone to download free of charge (Wenman 2019).

In 2016, Nelles and Al-Badri performed a virtual ‘repatriation’ of their Other Nefertiti by burying a 3-D printed replica of the bust at an undisclosed location in the Egyptian desert (Cascone 2016). This action suggests that, in reverse, it is possible that replicas may play an important role in future restitution practice where the simulacrum replaces the repatriated decolonised object. A report by the University of Stirling (2020) argues that replicas are ‘original objects in their own right with stories worth telling.’

Some argue that it is time to reassess the importance of replicas in relation to restitution practices. With the opening in 2025 of the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, the primacy of European Egyptology collections has been challenged and there are renewed calls for the restitution of contested objects like the Bust of Queen Nefertiti. Therefore, the polarised dispute over repatriation and provenance will continue but we believe that replicas, such as can be produced by the 3D scans of the bust of Queen Nefertiti, will play an increasingly important role in restitution debates and practices.

Reimagining Museums seeks to contribute to these debates through artistic interventions, replications and public displays with partner museums that will promote discussion and stimulate questioning regarding Nefertiti’s provenance, authenticity, and use within the cultural zeitgeist.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

REFERENCES

Read more about Culture&’s experimental work on the Bust of Queen Nefertiti and our contribution to the 2026 ANTITHESES Conference here.

For more about the background to Nefertiti’s restitution:

• Hanna, Monica. 2023. ‘Contesting the Lonely Queen’. International Journal of Cultural Property 30 (3): 245–63. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0940739123000115. 

• Cascone, Sarah. 2016. ‘Artists return Nefertiti Bust to Egypt thanks to covert 3-D scanning.’ artnet. 25 February. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/nefertit-bust-3d-scan-434609.

• Wenman, Cosmo. 2019. Bust of Nefertiti 3D scan Freedom of Information effort by Cosmo Wenman: August 2016 — October 2019. https://cosmowenman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20191029-cosmo-wenman-nefertiti-3d-scan-foia-effort.pdf. 

You can also find out more about the use of replicas in restitution:

• Foster, Sally and Jones, Siân (2020) ‘New futures for replicas: principles and guidance for museums and heritage.’ University of Stirling.
• Shehade, M and Stylianou-Lambert, T. 2026. ‘Restitution and replication: the role of 3D technology replicas in cultural restitution practices.’ International Journal of Heritage Studies, 32(1): 112–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2025.2591633.