Queen Nefertiti returns to Berlin

Ever since its first public exhibition in 1923, the precision of the 3,300-year-old sculpture's symmetrical lines and its finely wrought features have drawn thousands of admirers from around the globe.

On show for most of the past 40 years at the Egyptian Museum in west Berlin's Charlottenburg district -- separated by the Berlin Wall from her former home in the east of the city -- Nefertiti has become an icon of the German capital.German curators say they are confident of keeping her, despite an Egyptian campaign for her return.

"She's flawless," said Peter-Klaus Schuster, general-director of Berlin's state museums, "although we have recently discovered that she has a few wrinkles. She's not an idealized woman, she actually looked like that in real life."

The bust of Nefertiti, whose name can be roughly translated to mean "the beautiful one has come," was found in Egypt in 1912 at Tel-el-Amarna, the short-lived capital of Nefertiti's husband, the Pharaoh Akhenaten, who some believe was the father of Tutankhamun.