Postage stamp: sights - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1989 - 20 Pfennig

With »Landmarks«, the Deutsche Bundespost replaces the series »Castles and Palaces«, begun in 1976/77. The new permanent series with its extraordinary representations of significant cultural and technical achievements out, but should also be an incentive to look at the objects once in the original. Of the new role brands - they appear at the same time and continue the series - the 20 Pf and the 140 Pf value will be identical in the issues »Deutsche Bundespost Berlin«, the 33 Pf and the 38 Pf value only published in the issue »Deutsche Bundespost«. As an outstanding piece of the collections of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin-Charlottenburg, the bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti is the attraction of countless visitors year after year. The more than 3,300-year-old bust exerts a fascination that has made it world-famous and can barely escape from one of the observers. Nefret-iti - the correct name reading - can be translated as »the beautiful, she has come« or »the beautiful, may she come« Both possibilities bring the peculiarity of the 48 cm high bust made of limestone, stucco and mineral colors as a portrait of timeless beauty expressed. As the principal wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who died from about 1352 to 1335 BC. Nefertiti had taken an extraordinary protocol rank in comparison with other pharaonic main wives. He expressed himself mainly by their constant involvement in sacrificial acts and state actions of the king. More than 75 years ago, on December 6, 1912, the archaeologist Prof. Ludwig Borchardt was able to make a sensational discovery as part of an excavation of the German Orient Society in the city of Amarna in central Egypt. In the house of the sculptor and construction manager Thutmose the bust was found intact. It could be identified, though unlabelled and nameless, by comparisons to Nefertiti's assured accounts. In 1913, the bust was awarded to the Queen of the German side and thus became the property of the Berlin merchant and patron James Simon, the owner of the excavation concession and had financed the excavations Borchardts. He gave the bust to the Berlin Egyptian Museum in 1920. The bust of Nefertiti returned to Berlin in 1956 following a war and post-war aberration. In 1957 it became the property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. In 1967 the bust found its place in the newly founded Egyptian Museum in Berlin-Charlottenburg. (Text: The Senator for Justice and Federal Affairs, Plenipotentiary of the Land Berlin at the Federal Government, Bonn)