# The Nefertiti bust goes on public display in Berlin

Date: 1924

## The fact

In 1924 the bust excavated in 1912 was placed on public view in Berlin. James Simon had transferred the object to the state museums. The display is a completed museum act. It is not an Egyptian exhibition agreement and not a 1912 pit.

## Context

The object had been kept from the Egyptian public that produced it. Berlin’s display created a European mass image of [Nefertiti](/people/nefertiti) while Cairo still sought return. Both the access gain in Berlin and the dispossession in Egypt are real; they are split across Facts.

Nefertiti is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

SMB/Neues Museum pages document the object in Berlin. Britannica independently dates the public display. Different publishers.

Official or archival record: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin — Neues Museum (https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/neues-museum/home.html; SMB / Neues Museum).

## Significance

Improving public-access path in one country. Medium confidence on [social-cohesion](/drivers/social-cohesion) size. High on the display occurring.

Display is not restitution. Egyptian claims are a separate worsening/accountability path.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Berlin displayed the bust publicly in 1924. Not established: that display caused a measured literacy or tourism welfare series that year.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Nefertiti: https://factrail.ai/people/nefertiti

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nefertiti
- https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/neues-museum/home.html

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/de-nefertiti-bust-berlin-display-1924