Megan Taylor
Megan posing as Nefertiti at the Altes Museum Gift Shop in Berlin
Photo: Kayleigh Sopko
As I approached the large box of glass inside the Altes Museum, I hesitated. I have been anticipating and building up this meeting in my head since I left the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. I don’t know how this craving began or even why, but upon visiting Egypt I had become obsessed with the bust of Nefertiti. I have no real knack for art, I don’t frequent art galleries, and I certainly don’t produce any art of my own. But for some reason the bust of Nefertiti enthralls me, and as I departed from Egypt I itched to see the beauty of her that I had only before glimpsed in photographs.
As I slowly stepped towards the illuminated exhibit, I tried my hardest to stare at the stagnant air inside the glass box—anything but her face. I didn’t want to look at the Nefertiti until I could stand right in front of her and breathe in her beauty. I had practiced this same form of restraint in Egypt, viewing King Tut’s head only after I had looked at every piece of jewelry and every sarcophagus in the room.
My heart raced as I neared her, and it quickly became a more difficult task to divert my eyes from the bust. As I inched closer, the anticipation boiled up inside me, and as my feet reached within a meter of her it began spilling over. Finally, the moment had come. I took a giant breath and raised my eyes to meet hers.
She was even more breathtaking in person, with the spotlights shining down off her boldly blushed cheekbones and cherry-painted lips. Still cherry red after thousands of years underground. Her blank stare, thick black eye liner, and elongated neck only added to her sensuality and sex appeal. The navy blue cylindrical hat atop her head, trimmed in gold, red, and green accents, makes up nearly half of the bust itself. She truly lived up to all the hype. Her exotic beauty wowed me the moment my eyes met her single eye, and it was an experience that I will always remember.
It’s remarkable that a sculpture created four thousand years ago depicting an Egyptian queen could be standing there before me in Berlin, Germany. I mean, are the two even remotely related? As I had to move on to see the rest of the museum, I looked back one last time at the Nefertiti, sitting there under the hot lights of a sterile white room. I couldn’t help but feel sad for her, knowing she was out of place here in Germany, and wishing I could have seen her in her element, at home in Egypt.