She has an estimated value of €400 million ($433 million) and is a jewel in the crown of Egyptian antiquities. Yet a 3,370 year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti has been in Berlin since 1922.

Pressure is now mounting for her to return home.

Zahi Hawass, former antiquities minister of Egypt, began lobbying to repatriate Nefertiti before the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

This September, Hawass launched a petition to urge Germany to return the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti, which is currently housed in Berlin's Neues Museum.

"This bust, remarkable and unrivaled in history for its historical and aesthetic merit, is now in Germany, but it is time for it to come home to Egypt," the petition reads.

A German archaeological team discovered the painted limestone bust in 1912 and shipped it to Europe a year later.

Nefertiti has become a major tourist attraction and a part of the popular consciousness in the German capital during its long exile.

The bust, believed to have been crafted in 1345 BCE, has also been dubbed Egypt's ambassador to the city. But Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna questions this narrative.

"An ambassador entails a diplomatic exchange," she told DW, asking if Egypt has received something major in return, such as "the crown of (Prussian monarch) Frederick the........

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