Ancient artefact jewellery: ethics, craft and Zendaya’s viral earrings

When Zendaya arrived at the London premiere of The Odyssey luminous in a white Jacquemus dress and a pair of earrings made from 3,000-year-old Persian gold discs, it set off a rabid internet discourse. Some commenters argued that such artefacts ought to be returned to their country of origin, or belong in a museum. Others argued such artefacts represented ill-gotten gains, or at the least a murky provenance – and perhaps too the fetishisation of peoples and cultures. Jacob Sedgwick, a collector...