A Berlin museum chief confirmed Tuesday she planned to meet a senior Egyptian official soon to discuss a long-running dispute over the bust of Queen Nefertiti, an exquisite, 3,500-year-old limestone sculpture, according to dpa. Friederike Seyfried, director the BerlinEgyptian Museum, will meet next month with Zahi Hawass, the Egyptian antiquities chief, in Cairo, her office said, confirming Cairo news reports. The sculpture would be one topic of discussion. The bust is the most famed artefact in the Egyptology collection, housed in the newly reopened Neues Museum in the heart of Berlin. Cairo claims it was moved out of Egypt nearly a century ago without alerting inspectors to its true worth and is seeking its return. Berlin says the acquisition was a fair business arrangement.
