he delayed taking up his post as chief of antiquities in cairo preferring to remain on the front in europe instead in 1915 the french government ordered lacau to go to egypt but he would have preferred to carve out a career at home in france preferably at the louvre in paris because he was denied that opportunity lacau focused his ambitions on trying to prove that the germans had committed a serious moral mistake when they took the nefertiti bust to berlin essentially he felt that the germans had committed fraud and this accusation continues to color the controversy over who should own the nefertiti to this day lacau also characterized the restitution as a moral issue and he may have been right savoy an expert on early thefts of cultural artefacts makes it clear that a global renegotiation of the handling of archeological treasures is necessary in her view every egyptian museum that is not located in egypt should ask itself whether it even has the right to exist savoy refers to the question of the whereabouts and possible restitution of treasures looted in colonial times as one of the great challenges of the future priceless and irreplaceable treasures already precious at the time these treasures are now priceless and irreplaceable from a western perspective it is hard to imagine them being removed from the museum collections where they are now held german archeologist ludwig borchardt unearthed the nefertiti bust at the amarna archeological site 99 years ago referring to the find he noted colors as if just applied work is outstanding the piece was still dubbed simply colored bust of a princess but borchardt recognized its uniqueness immediately although lacau was not in office yet at the time he later accused borchardt of having concealed the splendor of the sculpture and created the impression that it was less important than another piece from the same dig an altar that subsequently remained in egypt the new practice was known as the sharing of finds from a later perspective it was disquieting because it meant that many ensembles were separated but different priorities applied in the colonial era the archeologist who had invested the money for the dig was to be permitted to keep half of the pieces he found or be compensated for half of their value while the egyptians kept the other half but in most cases it was the foreign treasure hunters who benefited from this arrangement because they downplayed the material value and significance of important pieces so that they could get them out of the country borchardt was as cunning as the rest he wrote that anyone who still hoped to derive anything worthwhile from the digs ought to apply the london system of deep cellars his words made it sound as if many a find had simply been covered up at the time even borchardt admitted by far the overwhelming portion fell into our laps that included the nefertiti bust but apparently he