If you ever make a trip to Berlin....there is this museum there....for Egyptian stuff, that you ought to spend a half day viewing.
The place? The Neues Museum.
This week, it got back on the map after alot of renovation and a reopening. The thing about this museum....is that they have a bust of Queen Nefertiti...which excites all the Egyptian-history wannabe experts.
This bust...is not just a $50 job...it's an original, and there in...lies a problem.
The Germans won't really get into a big discussion on this...but a German dude who was digging in Egypt....came up with the bust. The story is....he put a good bit of mud on it...walked it through the Egyptian customs folks there in the late 1800s....and they approved the exit of some old bust in bad shape. Naturally, modern Egyptian history buffs...will laugh over this...and admire it in a mega-million showroom.
The Egyptians? They have put up a pretty good argument over the return of the bust. They want the 3,500-year old bust back. They think the Germans are acting in an illegal fashion...and just ought to correct themselves.
It's a soap opera of sorts. The two groups argue back and forth. The Germans hate ethical debates on this because they lose. The Egyptians hate history lessons because they basically let hundreds of tons of stuff leave the country before they got tough in the past forty years.
Anyway.....if you got three hours to waste in Berlin....stop by the Museum. Just outside, there are five or six coffee & cake joints within five minutes walking and sip some fine German coffee afterward.
Oh, and my impression of the bust? Some dude spent an awful lot of time doing some fine work on this. It is pretty neat.
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