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  Berlin's Nefertiti Debate: Calling the Queen's Authenticity into Question

Berlin's Nefertiti Debate Calling the Queen's Authenticity into Question

By Christoph Seidler

Part 2: Debating the Evidence

The paint used on the bust yields even fewer clues as to its age. The pigments are all made from minerals, meaning carbon dating cannot be used. Simon points to the network of fissures and cracks in the paint on the surface of the bust. "I cannot imagine that one could reproduce that artificially," he says.

But Stierlin is unimpressed by such details. "People who know how to counterfeit paintings can also reproduce this craquelé effect," he says, referring to an artistic technique that makes surfaces show very small breaks so as to seem old.

Simon also points out that the complicated painting technique used on the bust, leading him to believe that it much older than 100 years. Under a microscope, Simon has found at least five different layers of paint layered one upon the other: first a layer of white paint with blue undertones, then white, then yellow, then blue, then red.

"Everyone knows that Borchardt possessed large quantities of pigment," Stierlin counters. He claims that Borchardt used the samples for experimentation.

The organic agent used to bind the paint is also not available in sufficient quantities to enable testing. The traces of straw in Nefertiti's headdress could, in theory, also be used. But testing would have be refined such that only a very tiny amount of material is used to avoid harming the bust, Simon says.

And then there's the matter of the left eye. According to Stierlin, Nefertiti never had a left eye. The right is made from quartz and beeswax darkened with soot. If there was a bit of telltale wax where the left eye once was, it could be tested. But up to now, no one has tried -- perhaps out of fear of damaging the statue. Simon says that there are traces of paint of the same type used in the right eye.

The sculpture is composed of the so-called Amarna-mix, a blend of gypsum anhydride plaster applied on top of a limestone base. The material is named after Tel el-Amarna, a small city in central Egypt founded by Pharaoh Akhenaton in the 14th century B.C. That is also where the bust of his queen would be found in 1912.

"This special blend was unknown before 1912," said Simon says, which would mean that Borchardt and his contemporaries could not have known its exact composition. Currently, researchers are comparing material used in the Nefertiti bust with that utilized in statues of her husband, Akhenaton, and other artifacts from the Amarna period. A model of her husband is also currently in Berlin -- lying in storage in much worse condition.

The secrets held by Nefertiti seem almost endless, despite the bust having been an object of all manner of tests for years. Why, for example, was so much oripiment, a toxic arsenic sulfide, used in the yellow paint? And just how solid is the bust? In a recent examination using a remote sensing technique known as video holography, Simon and his colleagues found damaged areas around the statue's headdress and upper chest. The scientists are particularly worried about the condition of the layered paint, bits of which have been flaking off for years.

One Mysterious Lady

The debate about Nefertiti's authenticity is not likely to go away any time soon. The emblematic character that makes her so attractive also makes her the perfect blank slate for theories like Stierlin's. And he's not alone, as the Berlin-based historian Erdogan Ercivan also maintains that the bust is a fake. And even if the evidence supporting such doubt is scant, the suspicion is difficult to explain away.

Simon dreams of one day hosting a colloquium of experts drawn from the world's best museums, who would work together on unlocking some of the statue's secrets. Perhaps they could come from London's British Museum or the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where Simon used to work. Or maybe from the Louvre in Paris, whose lab employs 180 people.

Simon's lab in Berlin, on the other hand, has 12. And the slow pace of the current work guarantees that, for the time being, the mysteries surrounding Nefertiti will remain just that.

For his part, Henri Stierlin says he can wait. "They know I'm right," he says.

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