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Jan Nikolai Nelles and Nora Al-Badri say on their website that they made the scan in the Neues Museum secretly. The aim of the two activists is to make cultural objects publicly accessible. They claim on their website that "the Neues Museum in Berlin until today does not allow any access to the head of Nefertiti nor to the data of their scan."

It is certainly not the case that the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) denies access to the bust, which has in fact been on public display for years. Moreover, since 2012 visitors have been able to touch a replica of the bust created for the blind and visually impaired. It sits across from the original. The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) have always informed the public of any new scientific findings regarding the bust. Photos of it are available on “SMB digital”, the museums’ online collection smb-digital.de, and – for commercial use – via the bpk picture agency. A 3D scan of the bust was completed in 2008 by Trigon Art for the museums. This data is currently available only for research purposes. The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin did not receive a request from the artists to use this data prior to their intervention. The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz does not currently see any reason to take legal action in this matter.

Photography Ban in the Museum

In general, the regulations of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin allow visitors to take photographs, shoot videos, or indeed to make scans, provided that a elaborate technical equipment is not used. The commercial use of films or photographs, however, must be approved by the museum management. Under certain circumstances, a blanket ban on photography is put in place for specific exhibitions or exhibition rooms. One of these rooms is the north cupola room of the Neues Museum, which contains, as its only exhibit, the bust of Nefertiti. The ban on photography in this room serves two purposes: to conserve and protect the object, which can tolerate only limited exposure to light, and to provide visitors with an environment that is relaxing and free of distraction. When photographs of the bust were permitted in the past, visitors routinely ignored the prohibition against using a flash. The museum management therefore felt it was necessary to institute a general ban on photography in this room.

It has not yet been definitively established whether the data made available by Nelles and Al-Badri were actually generated via a scan taken of the original in the museum. Experts say it is unlikely that the scan was produced in the museum. A thorough comparison with the 3D dataset belonging the museum has not yet been made.

History of the Acquisition

The bust of Nefertiti has been in Berlin since 1913. It was taken there as part of the finds officially granted (“partage”) to the archaeologist’s team. An official request for the bust to be returned has never been issued by the Egyptian state to the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

A brief history of the excavation and acquisition is given in the same room as the exhibit. It states that the bust was "found on December 6, 1912, by the excavation team of the German Orient Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft), led by Ludwig Borchardt. The sole financier and permit-holder of the excavation was James Simon, co-founder of the Society and the leading art patron and philanthropist in Berlin at the time. The finds awarded to the German team in accordance with the regulations of the time therefore came into his possession. In 1920, he donated his entire collection of finds from Amarna [to the museum]." A detailed account of the excavation and acquisition can be found in the 2012 publication, "In the Light of Amarna," available in both German and English.

3D Scans in Museums and the Publication of Digital Material

Digitization enables easy and democratic access to knowledge and cultural artifacts. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation allows access to its digitized material and the documentation systems of all its institutions and facilities through its website, SPK Digital. The majority of this material is also published in other information networks such as the German Digital Library (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek) or Europeana. Use of the Foundation's digital content is now, and will remain, generally free of charge for private individuals and research institutions. In the future, this content will include not only image, text, audio and video files, but three-dimensional digital models generated from 3D scans of objects in the museum's collections. The SPK requirements governing the use of these models are the same as for all other digital reproductions. Thus, for scans in particular, all intellectual property rights and copyright laws must be observed. The SPK has signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. These terms, as well as additional terms set by the SPK, also apply. They were published as a best-practice guideline in 2014.

The institutions and facilities of the SPK use various 3D scanning technologies in a number of projects. Some of these projects are aimed at presenting and providing data for research purposes. For example, the 3D data of the approximately 1,200 Babylonian and Mesopotamian cylinder seals belonging to the Vorderasiatisches Museum (Museum of the Ancient Near East) will soon be viewable on Edition Topoi (edition-topoi.org), the research platform of the Berliner Antike-Kolleg. In the future, the online collection SMB-digital will gradually integrate 3D data, as well, making it generally available to the public. Like all digitized media on the website, the data will be available under the terms of a Creative Commons license, which does not allow commercial use (by -sa –nc ).

The picture agency bpk will be responsible for managing and awarding the usage rights to the Foundation's three-dimensional models for commercial purposes. In the near future, 3D scans as well as video files will be added to its collection of material on offer. The Gipsformerei (Replica Workshop) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin uses 3D models to generate high-quality, extremely realistic physical replicas. In December 2015, for example, it presented a new version of Nefertiti replicas, which had been developed over a two-year period. In addition to coloring that is true to the original, the new replicas have an eye made of polished quartz, as the original does. The replica can be ordered from the Gipsformerei directly, or via the onlineshop of  the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The Gipsformerei is currently working to improve its online shop.

In January 2015, the Institut für Museumsforschung (Institute for Museum Research) organized "3D in the Museum" in cooperation with HTW Berlin: a conference on the methods, processes, opportunities and challenges involved in the 3D digitization of cultural heritage.

Links for Additional Information

• Best practice recommendation of the Stfitung Preussischer Kulturbesitz on open access
• Digitization in the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz
• Online database of the digital collections of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• The Competence Network of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
• Europeana
• Web shop of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Website of the artists
• Edition Topoi