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

From the Ziwiye Hoard to a Red-Carpet Photocall

The earrings worn by Zendaya at the London photocall for The Odyssey are attributed by Barron London, the Mayfair gallery that owns them, to the Ziwiye hoard, discovered in northwest Iran in the late 1940s. The pieces were reportedly acquired from London jeweller Glenn Spiro, who mounted the gold medallion plaques with diamonds in yellow gold. Barron London frames the loan as a celebration of "the remarkable artistry of ancient Persian goldsmiths", a position that critics argue conflates aesthetic appreciation with due diligence. The contrast between the dealer's marketing language and the academic response is at the heart of the dispute, with campaigners saying that calling the pieces "Persian heritage" while refusing to document their post-excavation history is itself a contradiction.

The Provenance Fight and the Petition

Romina Frohar, founder of the Forensic Archive of Iran, has organised a petition demanding that Barron London publish the complete known provenance of the gold plaques, reveal any legality checks, permit scholarly examination, and even suspend sale. Frohar, a PhD researcher at the Glasgow School of Art, argues that "cultural appreciation cannot substitute for provenance transparency" and that even lawful possession does not extinguish the cultural claims of the originating community. Antiquities expert Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, told the Guardian that after decades of illicit-trade scandals he was "extremely surprised, negatively surprised" that no one in Zendaya's entourage flagged the issue. He estimates, on the basis of his own work, that "about 90% of antiquities in the market one way or another, sooner or later, are proved to be illicit or lacking provenance". The petition's asks are procedural but pointed: transparency, accountability and a pause on commercial activity until the chain of custody is established.

A Trade That Operates in Plain Sight

The Guardian's reporting places the Zendaya episode inside a broader market in which antiquity dealers and auction houses move looted or poorly documented objects for luxury buyers. Online catalogues from London dealers list pieces such as an Egyptian beaded mummy mask, Hellenistic gold earrings and a bronze ibex-headed dress pin attributed to Iran, with prices starting around £450. At the top of the market, Christie's sold a 3,000-year-old neo-Assyrian relief from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II in 2018 for nearly $31m. Criminologist Simon Mackenzie, of Victoria University of Wellington, notes that most source countries now treat the discovery and removal of ancient objects as a form of theft under state-ownership laws. The episode also echoes older restitution battles, including the Koh-i-Noor diamond surrendered under the 1849 Treaty of Lahore, illustrating that the question of who rightfully holds the past is unresolved across continents and centuries.