“Ziwiye” and Ziwiye: The Forgery of a Provenience

For almost 30 years many hundreds of objects in gold, silver, bronze, and terracotta have been accepted and published by scores of scholars as having derived from the ancient site of Ziwiye in NW Iran. All of these objects in fact came from antiquity dealers, none was excavated by archaeologists. The “Ziwiye problem“ is discussed from an archaeological perspective that examines the background for this acceptance. It is argued that a study of the publications of the alleged find results in the conclusion that there are no objective sources of information that any of the attributed objects actually were found at Ziwiye, although it is probable that some were; that dealers and uncritical scholars together are responsible for treating the objects as an actual archaeological find from one find-spot; and that the objects have no historical and archaeological value as a group. Further, it is argued that the methodology employed by many scholars concerned with the material has been defective and improper and that many art historians and archaeologists have generally tended to ignore the serious implications involved in seeking firm cultural and archaeological conclusions when working with objects claimed to derive from sites that were not excavated by archaeologists.The study does not attempt to offer its own conclusions regarding the alleged nature, chronology, and artistic elements of the objects allegedly derived from Ziwiye; it is only concerned with an analysis of the scholarly treatment of a mass of material offered for sale by dealers and its subsequent integration into a putative reconstruction of the past.