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

The Odyssey took cinemas by storm, but while its take on the Homeric epic created waves among western classicists, it also became the earrings of an actor who made a splash further afield.

Zendaya, who plays the goddess Athena in the film, sparked outrage when she appeared at a photo shoot in London wearing earrings allegedly made from Iranian artefacts dating back to the 1st millennium BC.

The gold medallion plates are “attributed to the Ziwiye hoard discovered in northwestern Iran in the late 1940s,” according to Barron London, a Mayfair-based gallery and dealer that owns the earrings. These were purchased from another London jeweler, Glenn Spiro, who set them with yellow gold diamonds.

But while the Mayfair retailer claims the jewels celebrate “the extraordinary artistry of ancient Persian goldsmiths” and encourage “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 full known provenance of the gold plaques, explain their checks on the legality of the items, allow inspection of the objects and even suspend the sale.

Zendaya is used to the glare of camera lenses, but being the focus of academically qualified antique dealers is something else entirely.

Dr., an antiquities expert at the Swiss Federal Office for Culture. Christos Tsirogiannis said: “Personally, after twenty-five years of scandals popping up everywhere regarding illegal antiques of all kinds… I am extremely surprised, negatively surprised, that among these people who accompany these celebrities, no one has said anything to protect it.”

Romina Frohar, founder of the Iranian Judicial Archive, an independent investigative archive documenting threats to Iran’s cultural heritage, who wrote 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 art, but cultural appreciation cannot replace transparency of provenance,” he said. “If these objects are presented to the public as Iran’s cultural heritage, evidence regarding their origin, export, ownership history and acquisition must be open to scrutiny.”

Ethical issues can arise even if antiques are original and legally owned, said Frohar, a PhD researcher at the Glasgow School of Art. “Private custody can be responsible when it is transparent, focused on preservation, and attention is paid to public and academic access. But legal ownership alone does not eliminate the cultural claims of the people who embody the history of the object.”

From BC Iran to A-list actor, the earring’s journey included a journey into the murky world of the rare treasure trade, an industry in which priceless archaeological finds are transformed into high-end luxury trinkets.

Many of the collections of Mayfair dealers, auction houses and private houses would feel at home in the glass cases of museums.

Items currently available for purchase from online retailers include an Egyptian mummy mask made of beads dating from 664 BC to 332 BC; Hellenistic gold earrings with a garnet and agate pattern, dating back to the 3rd century BC, and a bronze clothes pin with a tip resembling a mountain goat, apparently from Iran and thought to be 3,000 years old. Prices start from around £450.

In parallel, auction houses put amazing antiques under the hammer. In 2018, Christie’s opened a new auction of the neo-Assyrian king Henry II, who reigned 800 years before the founding of the Roman Empire. He sold a 3,000-year-old relief taken from Ashurnasirpal’s palace. about $31 million.

Tsirogiannis is no stranger to this type of selling. Their work has uncovered evidence that casts doubt on the provenance of many antique artifacts on the market. “Approximately 90 percent of antiques on the market will be proven, one way or another, sooner or later, to be illegal or to have no provenance, no documentation,” he said.

If Zendaya’s earrings were authentic, it could also pose another moral dilemma: “They’re probably from a funeral. How does she feel like she’s wearing an old dead woman’s earrings?” [that may have been] Was it looted?” he said.

The provenance and ownership of ancient artifacts is a topic that has long gone beyond the academic world. The most infamous examples include the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was delivered to Queen Victoria by the 10-year-old maharajah Duleep Singh in 1849 as part of the Treaty of Lahore and became part of the British crown jewels.

Legal regulations regarding determining who owns antique items can be complex.

“Many of the countries that are named as sources for antiquities now have state ownership laws stating that ancient objects discovered belong to the state,” said Simon Mackenzie, professor of criminology at Victoria University of Wellington (Te Herenga Waka) in New Zealand. “Therefore, the act of exploration and plunder is actually a form of theft [from the government].”

“In many countries, including Iran, these laws were created over time and were not retroactive, so legal arguments can be made about the exact date from which the theft rule was implemented,” he said.

Despite the outrage, sprinkling modern celebrity stardust over the treasures of the past millennium isn’t always a bad thing. Once bling attracts academic attention, a conversation about origins can begin.

For example, when Kim Kardashian posed in a gold dress next to a gilded Egyptian coffin at the Met Gala in 2018, antique smuggling experts took notice.

The Met Museum bought the 2,100-year-old coffin of the priest Nedjemankh for 4 million dollars and made it the star of an exhibition. But, experts soon announced It was excavated by thieves in 2011 and smuggled from Egypt to Dubai and then to Europe, where it was restored and given false documents.

The legal and ethical issues surrounding Zendaya’s earrings may never be resolved, but there’s a conundrum that doesn’t require a PhD to spot.

As Tsirogiannis points out, the movie star’s jewelry brought attention to Iran while promoting a movie that had nothing to do with ancient Iran.