3D Scanning
The bust of Queen Nefertiti, an Egyptian artwork famously residing in Berlin has been secretly 3D scanned and the data released online as a torrent, providing completely free access under public domain to the an object in the museum’s collection that is currently off-limits to photographers. Now, anyone can download even create 3D prints of the piece.
In what they are calling an 'artistic intervention,' two German artists Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles 3D scanned the head of the Neues Museum Berlin's famous Nefertiti without permission of the Museum and then released the 3D data under a Creative Commons Licence.
The original bust is a 3,300-year-old painted stucco-coated limestone sculpture of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. The piece is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose, because it was found in his workshop in Amarna, Egypt. It is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt.
Partly because of the piece, Nefertiti has become one of the most famous women of the ancient world, and a symbol of feminine beauty.
A German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt discovered the Nefertiti bust in 1912 in Thutmose's workshop. It has been kept at various locations in Germany since its discovery, including the cellar of a bank, a salt mine in Merkers-Kieselbach, the Dahlem museum, the Egyptian Museum in Charlottenburg and the Altes Museum. It is currently on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin, where it was originally displayed before World War II.
The Nefertiti bust has been the subject of an intense argument between Egypt and Germany over Egyptian demands for its repatriation.
"With the data leak as a part of this counter narrative we want to activate the artefact, to inspire a critical re-assessment of today’s conditions and to overcome the colonial notion of possession."
The artists themselves used the 3D data to create a 3D printed, one-to-one polymer resin model they claim is the most precise replica of the bust ever made, and are permanently displaying it in the American University of Cairo. The project called "The Other Nefertiti" serves as a stand-in for the original artwork.The artists' 3D Print exhibited in Cairo is the most precise scan ever made public of the original head of Nefertiti. The artists' intention is to make cultural objects publicly accessible. The Neues Museum in Berlin until today does not allow any access to the head of Nefertiti nor to the data from their scan. “With the data leak as a part of this counter narrative we want to activate the artefact, to inspire a critical re-assessment of today’s conditions and to overcome the colonial notion of possession in Germany” the two artists say.
Al-Badri and Nelles leaked the information at Europe’s largest hacker conference, the annual Chaos Communication Congress. Within 24 hours, at least 1,000 people had already downloaded the torrent from the original seed, and many of them became seeders as well.
Since then, the pair has also received requests from Egyptian universities asking to use the information for academic purposes and even businesses wondering if they may use it to create souvenirs.
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| Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles with the 3D bust in Cairo |
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The artists hope their actions will place pressure on not only the Neues Museum but on all museums to repatriate objects to the communities and nations from which they came. Rather than viewing such an idea as radical, they see it as pragmatic, as a logical update to cultural institutions in the digital era: especially given the technological possibilities of today, the pair believes museums who repatriate artifacts could then show copies or digital representatives of them.
Many people have already created their own Nefertitis from the released data; the 3D statue in the American University in Cairo stands as such an example of Al-Badri and Nelles’s ideals for the future of museums, in addition to being one immediate solution that may arise from individual action.
With 3D scanners shrinking in size and price, they are already common apps and modifications to smartphones and other mobile devices. More and more museums around the world can expect their artefacts to be 'liberated' like the Nefertiti has been. Other institutions are already embracing sharing such data. Should they all?
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