This post aims to complicate the debate around the earrings Zendaya was wearing at The Odyssey film premiere. I probe the provenance as well as critique all ends of the discussion on what is right and what is wrong about the reuse of antiquities in jewellery.
Those who know me well sigh when I declare I have not seen nor heard of the latest celebrity thingy. However when a friend shared the story of the earrings which reused allegedly ancient Iranian elements worn by an actress called Zendaya at the premiere of a film called The Odyssey, my interest was piqued.
At the annual Jewellery Valuers Conference in 2025 I delivered two training workshops on how to value jewellery with reused antiquities. It is a subject I am deeply interested in from an historical and contemporary point of view.
A little note about my position writing this, I occupy two worlds, one working on gems, jewellery and other material culture in public museums, one in commercial jewellery valuing. However my ethics surrounding topics like this remain the same and I’ll explain why in this post.
Appraising jewellery incorporating historical and archaeological elements such as ancient coins, gemstones and other decorative elements, adds extra levels of consideration when undertaking valuations. Most countries in the world have special laws surrounding the trade in antiquities and (in the UK) Treasure–the kind of precious objects which are found by metal detectorists and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. There are also laws and international conventions on prohibited or controlled materials such as ivories and tiger claws both of which feature in jewellery which may no longer even be legal to sell. And if it is not legal to sell, it is not legal to value it.
What’s an antiquity?
My working definition of an antiquity relates to items over 300 years old. I call anything younger an ‘historical element’ that is not contemporary with its setting.
My working definition of an antique relates to complete items over 100 years old, which is the common definition adopted in the jewellery valuing world, however this can be complicated in cases of clear reuse of non-contemporary elements.
Without other provenance such as documentation or datable marks, definitive dating can only be provided by archaeological context e.g. date of a shipwreck, excavation environment or well-known coin issues. More rarely organic items may be dated using radiocarbon dating (C-14) or some more recent techniques using optical spectroscopy (very excited about the potential of this). Sometimes dating may be possible from comparison with datable items.
To be clear, you cannot accurately date an object, especially an antiquity, just by looking at its style. You may make some educated guesses once you are fully experienced in handling and closely examining such objects for forensic clues of workmanship and materials used.
Where did the gold discs come from?
These earrings were loaned to Zendaya by Barron’s of London. They are beautifully photographed with a description that says, “A pair of Ziwiye gold medallion plaques, circa 1st millennium BC Iran. Mounted by Glenn Spiro with diamonds in yellow gold. Glenn Spiro, 2020.”
I am drawn to the radiate stylised-sun motif and the repoussé work. Why isn’t anyone talking about the design and technique?
Let’s take a closer look at this description. To date an object across the entire span of 1000 years (circa 1st millennium BC) is stretching the very definition of antiquity (see above). Iran as a nation state did not exist in the 1000 years before the Common Era (CE) or Christ (AD). The period of the Persian Empires were also complicated in terms of their political and cultural sway. And it wasn’t just Persians who occupied this land.
Nevertheless this is a very interesting period in history, Zoroastrianism was spreading and intermingling with indigenous pagan belief systems. Avestan became a sacred language, the sister of Vedic Sanskrit, and Zoroastrianism was becoming the dominant religion, stretching its influence also into Central Asia (or from depending on your understanding of from where Zarathustra may have hailed).
This was the region’s Bronze Age, a time when metalworking really blossomed into an essential human activity as well as a reason to control and conquer. The Persians were not one monolithic people (as they were not, we are not now), there was much contention between powerful families, tribes which became kingdoms which became empires. There were also those that just wanted to mind their own business and get on in life who got swept up in the turmoil around them. Epic rivalries between the Medes and Persians, and others, ensued in the first centuries of the “first millennium BC” prior to periods of stability under the Achaemenids from the 6th century BCE.
Enough of the history lesson. The point is, the majority of coverage of this story glosses the context from which these ancient objects are supposed to have been made. For all we know these objects were produced from the spoils of war – loot if you like – between warring factions. Gold decorations like this may have had all sorts of purposes from adorning clothing, armour, weapons or other objects. Before bank vaults people regularly buried valuables in troubled times and some didn’t get to return to retrieve them. Let’s also not assume they were somehow sacred or ritual – the lazy go-to conclusions of many historians and archaeologists (and antiquities dealers).
These objects were not originally earrings, they were made such by the jewellery designer Glenn Spiro with the addition of diamonds and an attachment. We don’t know where these objects came from. It is ok to say we don’t know. The objects cannot speak and devoid of their archaeological context they remain mute and are merely players in a contemporary drama as far away from their original life as is possible to imagine.
This is why my own ethical navigation of such stories is complex. There is a tendency during contemporary debates to politicise objects which are otherwise deemed naive and innocent, like there is always a clear and rightful place it should be or an occluded and wrongful place it shouldn’t be.
This is simply not how objects circulate through different lifetimes, especially those resilient enough to survive 3000 years. We have to complicate these debates and then understand that there isn’t one right and one wrong. Two truths may exist at once.
In further reporting in The Guardian on 21 July, a formal statement from Barron stated that they purchased the earrings from another London jeweller, Glenn Spiro, in 2025, and “are attributed to the Ziwiye hoard, discovered in north-western Iran in the late 1940s.”
So we have three pieces of information that raise questions about the gold discs’ provenance: their date, their geocultural origins, and their circulation since their apparent discovery.
Persian or Iranian or Kurdish?
In the same Guardian reporting above, a further statement by Barron added: “The intention behind the loan was never commercial. It was to celebrate the remarkable artistry of ancient Persian goldsmiths and to encourage wider appreciation of one of the world’s great artistic traditions. At a time when Iran is so often represented through the lens of contemporary politics, we hope these earrings can also remind audiences of the country’s profound cultural, artistic and historical legacy.”
That is a lovely altruistic thing to say after the backlash, and while it may even be earnest and honest, the effect of lending such baubles to celebrities has one effect, and one effect only, that of getting more eyeballs on something you want to sell or a brand you want recognised. Jewellery designers and literally the entire world of commerce have been doing this for years with greater or lesser success. Two things can be true at the same time.
The more curious part of this statement goes back to one of my earlier points about complexity and accuracy. The broad uses of ‘Iranian’ and ‘Persian’ simply are not accurate here if you bother to better understand the context of the Ziwiye hoard. Ziwiye is an archaeological site in the Kurdish region of north-western Iran in Saqqez. It is also known as the Ziviyeh District and Zivia.
Incidentally, all have far too readily accepted the story that these gold discs came from this ancient hoard, of which more below. Nevertheless, there is great depth to the history of Kurds in this region and neighbouring regions and yet I have not seen much mention of them in relation to this story.
Jewellers can fall into the same trap of relying on genericisms as everyone else joining in the online chitter-chatter and media reporting on this story. There are some ‘facts’ people seem ready to accept if it helps fuel their own story while other facts are ignored or not sought.
Let’s take a look at the making of these earrings and turn to their story in the hands of London-based jeweller Glenn Spiro. Glenn Spiro incorporates the reuse of historical elements and antiquities they have ‘collected’ or ‘acquired’ in several of their pieces. Their “Materials of the Old World” collection has been written about by Jessica Beresford of the Financial Times. Spiro has made a number of new pieces with reused Baoulé gold elements made by goldsmiths from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana where there is a deep tradition of highly technical goldsmithing stretching back centuries. The goldsmiths of antiquity are never going to benefit from the onward use of their art just as much as dead artists can’t, but it is always worth asking the questions, ‘where did these come from exactly?’, ‘Who made them?’ ‘What is special about them?’, ‘Who might be interested in their story?’, ‘Who needs acknowledging?’
When antiquity becomes novelty
The words ‘collected’ and ‘acquired’ have a neutral effect on understanding exchange mechanisms involving antiquities today. They close a conversation on the significance of the life of the object prior to its current use or custodianship.
Antiquity just becomes novelty and certainly most jewellery designers I know do not probe their understanding of history and antiquity particularly deeply nor ask the right questions, which is a shame as the resulting creations could become so much more meaningful if they did, and they would do a great service to the future and onward reuses of elements such as these gold discs. If a little time was spent asking the right questions and better researching and documenting them, their stories would travel with them.
This leads me to the most interesting part of this story which is that of the Ziwiye Hoard itself. The story centres on French archaeologist André Godard and dealer Ayub Rabenou who began to publish objects apparently from this hoard in 1948. It is their story that alleged that local farmers/peasants had in 1947 discovered a buried bronze container high in the hills of Ziwiye full of gold, silver, bronze, ivory and ceramic artefacts. Godard and his circle also alleged that many of these items were cut up and sold off by the locals.
To pause a moment, two years after the end of the Second World War, faced with huge displacements of people and massive poverty, even if local farmers had found this hoard and sold off items probably to be able to feed themselves and their families, wouldn’t you?
Back to the story making. Oscar White Muscarella has analysed the evidence for the discovery of the hoard and the various claims made in the antiquities trade of objects supposedly deriving from it for decades. In the aftermath of the publication of this apparent discovery finds attributed to Ziwiye popped up in Iran, the US, Europe, and elsewhere, being purchase by both museums and and private collectors. Some exhibitions were also mounted.
But just how many artefacts can this one burial container have had? Nevertheless many scholarly articles were written about it by those with no real knowledge of the site or the discovery, adding to a sensation of authenticity that was not born in reality.
Legitimate archaeological investigation in the years since have provisionally dated the broader site of Ziwiye to between the 8th to 6th centuries BCE (700-500 BCE). No more riches were found except structures, pottery and small finds.
The hoard’s provenance is just not credible according to Muscarella (2017):
But even accepting that a remarkable discovery occurred there, it is surely not possible to know which of the hundreds of objects sold as from the site actually derived from there, or from a nearby site, or which and how many objects purchased by dealers in Iran and elsewhere were conveniently labeled by them as from “Ziwiye,” witness the forgeries. The plunder itself, and equally the unquestioning scholarly acceptance of unprovenienced [sic], orphaned artifacts as if archaeologically excavated, is a cultural disaster.
A cursory image search for artefacts deriving from the Ziwiye Hoard demonstrates just how unlikely it is that this is a credible provenance. That bronze container would have been as large as a royal mausoleum to contain all of those.
What do I think?
I think the controversy has led me to investigate this little corner of the material past that I would not otherwise have come across. Given its alleged tangential link to my own heritage and professional interests I suppose this is welcome on a personal level.
I think those critical of the loan of these ‘Iranian’ disc-based contemporary earrings to a high-profile US celebrity are right to question the poor timing and messaging, intended or not, given the current war between the US and Iran. One commentator called this “orientalist practices” and I would agree.
I think the Ziwiye provenance of these gold discs should be filed in the ‘convenient’ pile viz. Muscarella until proven otherwise.
I think any talk of these gold discs belonging in a museum is based on a very thin argument. Museums have enough poorly-provenanced antiquities that arrived on their doorsteps over the last 300 years to be dealing with.
There isn’t anything wrong per se with antiquities being reused in this way, in many ways it is an excellent way to keep current creative inspiration from the past. Jewellers have been reusing antiquities since Antiquity and before. The avatar on this website itself is an early medieval ring reusing a Roman intaglio.
However it must be legal. Many nation states have signed up to international conventions governing the illicit trade in antiquities since the end of the Second World War. These are important because of the historical and current drain of antiquities from their communities of heritage – the the archaeological excavation of artefacts generates information and knowledge and it is that loss in particular that can never be compensated. Museums themselves are/have been as complicit as the cartoon-villain antiquities dealers of popular imagination.
I think antiquities dealers have a bad reputation because of a small but significant number not taking enough interest in the provenance of their wares, or worse, making up provenance to circumvent laws or just to sell. Vendors must subject themselves to scrutiny when they deal in antiquities. More often than not it’s the clumsy obfuscation that results from a lack of curiosity (asking the right questions) and a lack of diligence that leads to suspicion about whether the items are ill-gotten gains or legitimately in circulation.
There are incredible dealers with incredible knowledge about past material culture who genuinely care about sharing this knowledge with their clients and the public at large and would not get mixed up with objects with clearly questionable provenance. Their populist poor reputation is not always deserved.
As I have said before, no one talking about restitution or rightful ownership can ever know if these objects were themselves from the proceeds of looting, violence and imperialism in Antiquity. Colonialism does not belong to the recent past.
I think the design of the reused discs is stunning, delicate and understated. There is an empathy with the original objects though I would like to know where those diamonds came from. I so want to see the reverse of these gold discs as I think we are missing where the exquisite repoussé work really shows.
Whoever you were, ancient goldsmith, I really appreciate your work and skill.
I hope Barron finds a curiously-minded and careful new owner for them and I hope they treat these objects with the respect their (apparent) 3000-year vintage deserves.
I think everyone should get their history right before judging, loaning or selling.