"Most likely, the bust was meant to serve as a model for the official portrait. This explains why the eye on the left side is missing. The artist simply wanted to show his pupils how to make the internal part of the eye," Wildung said.
Little is known about Nefertiti, the "Great Royal Wife" of the renegade pharaoh Akhenaton, who ruled from 1353-1336 B.C. in the Amarna period.
Along with her "heretic" husband, accused of overthrowing the pantheon of the gods to worship the sun god Aton, Nefertiti vanished as if she had never been.
Efforts to erase the new monotheistic religion left no records about her. Indeed, before the discovery of her celebrated bust, only scholars would have recognized her name.
"This is a very important finding. It destroys the myth of Nefertiti as the icon of youthful beauty and reveals a new, fascinating woman in her mature beauty," Egyptologist Francesco Tiradritti, the organizer of the Tuscan meeting, told Discovery News.
According to Tiradritti, the fact that the discovery was made by adopting new lighting should teach an important lesson to museum curators worldwide.
"Egyptian art should not be displayed as something mysterious, under heavy light and dark arrangements. On the contrary, full lighting should be adopted to show even the smallest detail. This is what the Egyptians wanted for their artworks," Tiradritti said.
