Egypt has not officially asked Germany to return of the bust of Nefertiti, Egypt's antiquities chief said on Wednesday, adding that a committee would convene next week to discuss its next move, DPA reported.

"The national committee for returning stolen artifacts will meet on Tuesday next week and decide what we will do with the case," said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities.

The Berlin museum that owns the treasure said Tuesday that new tests show the 3,500 year old limestone and plaster bust of Queen Nefertiti is too fragile to fly to Egypt for a temporary exhibition.

"I would like the statute to come back to Egypt. It should be here. It is a part of Egypt. It belongs to Egypt more than it belongs to Germany," Hawass said in an interview with the German Press Agency dpa at his Cairo office.

"We are not asking (Germany) for anything else, just this unique statue," the antiquities chief said.

Berlin insists Egypt has never officially laid claim to the bust, which was discovered during a German-financed 1912 excavation at Tell al-Amarna and later presented to the Prussian state.

The Prussian Heritage Foundation has denied that German archaeologist Ludwig Borchard, who discovered the bust, deliberately misled the Egyptian antiquities inspectors.

The bust of the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled ancient Egypt in the 13th century BC, is on exhibit at the Neues Museum in Berlin.

Hawass said that to date, Egypt had managed to recover some 5,000 items it claims were illegally removed from the country.