IS THE BUST OF QUEEN NEFERTITI A FAKE?

A Swiss author, Henri Stierlin, says the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti is a 1912 fake. He says it was ordered by the archaeologist who supposedly discovered the treasure to test the colors of ancient pigments. The bust was said to be found during excavations at the old settlement of Amarna, 90 miles south of Cairo. It was later transported to Germany, where it was admired by a visiting Prussian prince when he saw it in 1912. Rather than embarrass the prince by telling him the bust was not ancient, the archaeologist (according to Steirlin) did not explain its history. The bust was later given to a Berlin museum and has been considered a great treasure. It will soon be displayed in a special newly built room. Stierlin says no archaeologists at the dig ever mentioned the bust, her deliberate lack of a left eye would have been considered an insult in ancient Eygpt, her shoulders were shaped differently than those on busts by Egyptian artists, and her facial features are based on twentieth-century ideas of beauty rather than on those of ancient Egypt. I always thought Queen Nefertiti looked amazingly modern, with a spectacular long neck and high cheekbones. Has anyone else noticed that in proper makeup Audrey Hepburn could look like her sister? Scientific tests haven't helped much in dating the bust because the stone is covered with plaster and the pigments are really 3,400 years old. To make the puzzle more complicated, since 1923 the Egyptian government has demanded the return of the bust, which it claims was smuggled out of the country.