New tests show the limestone and plaster bust of Queen Nefertiti is too fragile to fly home to Egypt for a temporary exhibition, the Berlin museum that owns the disputed artwork said Tuesday. It issued the statement two days after the Egyptian Museum's director, Friederike Seyfried, met in Cairo with Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass. She said she did not negotiate over the 3,500-year-old bust with Hawass.

A German antiquities expert will attend talks next month to discuss Egypt’s demand for the return of a 3,500-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities council, said that a meeting planned in Egypt on Dec. 8 to discuss the possession of the statue would be attended by the director of the Egyptian antiquities department at the Berlin museum.

An ancient Egyptian bust of Queen Nefertiti has been moved back to the Berlin museum that exhibited it before the Second World War. The 3,500-year-old sculpture was installed in the renovated Neues Museum on Sunday, museum officials said Monday.