Queen Nefertiti Bust

Detail of back with broad jeweled collar (painted); A German archeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt discovered the Nefertiti bust in 1912 in Thutmose's [Tuthmosis] workshop in Amarna, Egypt. It has been kept at several locations in Germany since its discovery, including a salt mine in Merkers-Kieselbach, the Dahlem museum (then in West Berlin), the Egyptian Museum in Charlottenburg and the Altes Museum. It is currently on display at the Neues Museum, Berlin, where it was displayed before World War II. The face is completely symmetrical and almost intact, but the left eye lacks the inlay present in the right. The pupil of the right eye is of inserted quartz with black paint and is fixed with beeswax. The background of the eye-socket is unadorned limestone. Nefertiti wears her characteristic blue crown known as the "Nefertiti cap crown" with a golden diadem band, which is looped around like horizontal ribbons and joins at the back, with an Uraeus (cobra) over her brow which is now broken. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 4/21/2011