Treasure as trinkets: Zendaya’s earrings renew debate on ownership of ancient artefacts

The artefacts worn by Zendaya dated back almost 3,000 years and were loaned by a Mayfair dealer. Photograph: David Fisher/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen The artefacts worn by Zendaya dated back almost 3,000 years and were loaned by a Mayfair dealer. Photograph: David Fisher/Shutterstock Treasure as trinkets: Zendaya’s earrings renew debate on ownership of ancient artefacts Jewellery made from BC Iran worn at Odyssey photocall throws spotlight on the trade of rare archeological finds The Odyssey has stormed cinemas, but while its take on the Homeric epic has created ripples among western classicists, it is an actor’s earrings that have made waves further afield. Zendaya, who portrays the goddess Athena in the movie, provoked outrage when she appeared at a London photocall wearing earrings that were allegedly made from Iranian artefacts dating back to the 1st millennium BC. According to Barron London, a Mayfair-based gallery and dealer that owns the earrings, the gold medallion plaques are “attributed to the Ziwiye hoard, discovered in north-west Iran in the late 1940s”. They were bought from another London jeweller, Glenn Spiro, who mounted them with diamonds in yellow gold. View image in fullscreen Gold plate showing a character fighting a lion from the Ziwiye Hoard exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Photograph: Lanmas/Alamy But while the Mayfair retailer claims the jewellery celebrates “the remarkable artistry of ancient Persian goldsmiths” and encourages “wider appreciation of one of the world’s great artistic traditions”, academics take a different view. A petition has been launched calling for Barron London to publish the complete known provenance of the gold plaques, reveal the checks they undertook on the legality of the items, permit examination of the objects, and even suspend sale. Zendaya is used to the glare of camera lenses, but being the focus of academically qualified antiquarians is something else altogether. Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, an antiquities expert at the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, said: “Personally, after all these two and a half decades of continued scandals emerging everywhere about all sorts of illicit antiquities … I’m extremely surprised, negatively surprised, that no one among all these people that escort these celebrities said something to protect her.” ‘Incredible’ Roman bathers’ gems lost 2,000 years ago found near Hadrian’s Wall Read more Romina Frohar, the founder of the Forensic Archive of Iran, an independent investigative archive documenting threats to Iran’s cultural heritage that set up the petition, said her concern was broader than Zendaya’s decision to wear the items. “Barron London has described the loan as a celebration of ancient Persian artistry, but cultural appreciation cannot substitute for provenance transparency,” she said. “If these objects are being publicly presented as Iranian cultural heritage, the evidence concerning their origin, export, ownership history and acquisitio