Saraya Gomis, the undersecretary of the Berlin State Office for Equal Treatment and Against Discrimination, made a statement that some may find controversial on the repatriation process of cultural artifacts, calling for the Pergamon Altar and the bust of Nefertiti to be returned to their countries of origin.
"In principle, I personally favor the return of the Pergamon Altar and the bust of Nefertiti. But it is a decision to be taken by the state officials," Gomis said in a statement to the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
She also stated that the approach to the repatriation of cultural assets should change. "With an anti-discrimination embrace, we should say that all of these are brought from other parts of the world and do not belong to us, brought illegally," she said.
The Pergamon Altar was a monumental construction built during the reign of the Ancient Greek King Eumenes II.
Currently, the Pergamon Altar, which was brought to Prussia from the Ottoman lands by the German engineer Carl Humann in the 1870s, is on display at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin while the bust of Nefertiti was brought to Berlin from Egypt.
