CAIRO, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Egypt would formally request Germany to return the statue of Queen Nefertiti, as a Berlin museum official presented papers showing it was taken illegally in 1912, an Egyptian official announced on Sunday.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that his country would officially request the return of the bust of Nefertiti, queen of ancient Egypt and wife of Akhenaten, from Berlin Museum in Germany.

Hawass made the announcement after talks with Friederike Seyfried, director of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection at the Neues Museum in Berlin.

He said that Seyfried presented him with the agreement signed in 1913 which divided archeological finds between Germany and Egypt.

"This shows the statue left Egypt in an unethical manner and that there was fraud and deception from the German part at that time," said Hawass.

Earlier on Wednesday, Egypt received five stolen Pharaonic wall paintings from France. The paintings arrived at the Egyptian Museum after a meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hawass also pressed Britain last week to return the Rosetta Stone, an ancient stone tablet which is the key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs and seen as an icon of Egypt.