Hawass on Nefertiti

El Arabiya News

Egyptian authorities are crying foul, claiming that the allegations regarding the legitimacy of one of Egypt's most prized artifacts are unfounded.

"Stierlin is not a historian. He is delirious," Zahi Hawas, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities told AlArabiya.

Hawas, the leading expert on ancient Egypt, refuted a number of claims Stierlin cited in his argument over the age of the bust, including its design and original condition.

Stierlin said the shoulders were cut vertically in the style practiced since the 19th century while "Egyptians cut shoulders horizontally" and that the features were accentuated in a manner recalling that of Art Nouveau.

But Hawas argued that the era of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti was distinguished by a new type of art form that broke free from all traditional styles.

"Thus, the paintings and statues belonging to this period came out different," he said.

Stierlin noted that the bust has no left eye and this would have been an insult to the queen at the time, so it couldn't have been carved during Nefertiti's reign.

Hawas again refuted the claim saying that the bust had a left eye that was damaged.

"The royal sculptor Tohotmos made it with two eyes, but one was later destroyed."

Stierlin also listed problems he noted during the discovery and shipment to Germany as well as in scientific reports of the time.

French archaeologists present at the site never mentioned the finding and neither did written accounts of the digs. The earliest detailed scientific report appeared in 1923, 11 years after the discovery.

The archaeologist "didn't even bother to supply a description, which is amazing for an exceptional work found intact," Stierlin said.

Hawas agreed with him regarding the report, but attributed it to the fact that the French archaeologists in charge of Egypt's antiquities at the time were not present in Tel al-Amarna where the bust was discovered.