Queen Nefertiti freed from German museum

The Neues Museum in Berlin is the current home of the bust of Queen Nefertiti, a singular piece of ancient Egyptian sculpture. A pair of artists went to the museum, did a 360° scan of the bust without the museum’s permission, and have made the resulting high-resolution 3D model available to all.

In lieu of the contested original, a 3D-printed copy of the bust made from the model is now on display in Egypt at the American University of Cairo. (via hyperallergic)

Update: There’s cause to be skeptical about how the 3D scan of Nefertiti was accomplished and the artists are being a little vague as to how they did it. The video shows the artists using a Kinect Xbox controller but a Kinect scan can’t deliver the resolution level of the 3D model. Perhaps it was stitched together using a bunch of photos? Or maybe they hacked into the museum’s files and took their model?

The last possibility and reigning theory is that Ms. Badri and Mr. Nelles elusive hacker partners are literally real hackers who stole a copy of the high resolution scan from the Museum’s servers. A high resolution scan must exist as a high res 3D printed replica is already available for sale online.

• 3D printing
• art
• Egypt
• museums
• Queen Nefertiti