Queen Nefertiti

CAIRO — Egypt's antiquities chief said Sunday he will formally demand the return of the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti from a Berlin museum after confirming it was sneaked out of Cairo in 1913 through fraudulent documents.

Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has been aggressively campaigning to reclaim treasures that he says were stolen from Egypt and purchased by some of the world's leading museums.

Hawass' campaign yielded a huge success this week with the return of painted wall fragments from a 3,200-year-old tomb from the Louvre in Paris. Hawass had cut ties with the French museum and suspended its excavation in southern Cairo to pressure it to return the artifacts.

Highlighting the importance of the efforts, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak traveled to Paris to oversee the handover of the fragments, which arrived in Cairo Tuesday.

The limestone bust of Nefertiti, wife of famed monotheistic Pharaoh Akhenaton, topped the list Hawass has drawn for high-profile items he wants back.