More than 60 years after it suffered severe bomb damage during the second world war, Berlin’s Neues Museum reopened on Friday, providing the priceless 3350 year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti with a new home. Ravaged by the weather and neglected by east Germany’s communist authorities after the war, the Neues Museum has been lovingly restored by David Chipperfield, the British architect, over a period of six years and at a cost of more than €200m.

Berlin's Egyptology Museum, possessor of the bust of Queen Nefertiti and other great pharaonic treasures, is to gain a new chief, Friederike Seyfried, 49, board members decided Friday. She replaces Dietrich Wildung who retires at the end of this month. Seyfried, who is a veteran of digs in Egypt and is currently custodian of an egyptology museum in Leipzig, will oversee the Berlin museum's re-opening this October in a refurbished building, the Neues Museum, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation said.