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  Shown within West and Central Asia  Ziwiye hoard (Iran) | |
| Coordinates | 36°15′44″N46°41′16″E / 36.26222°N 46.68778°E |
|---|---|
| Type | Hoard |
The Ziwiye hoard is a treasure hoard containing gold, silver, and ivory objects, also including a few gold pieces with the shape of human face , that was uncovered on in Ziwiyeh plat near Saqqez city in Kurdistan Province, Iran, in 1947.
Objects from the hoard provide a link between the cultures of the Iranian plateau and the nomadic or Scythian art forms known as the "animal style". "The Scythian motifs adopted by Urartu account for the decoration of the great Treasure of Saqqez brought to light on the south shore of Lake Urmia," was Leonard Woolley's assessment (Woolley 1961 p 176).
The hoard contains objects in four styles: Assyrian, Scythian, proto-Achaemenid, and the provincial native pieces. Dated ca. 700 BC, this collection of objects illustrates the situation of the Iranian plateau as a crossroads of cultural highways—not least of them the Silk Road —which fused disparate cultures to inform early Iranian art. The objects have also been related to finds at Teppe Hasanlu and Marlyk. [1]
Examples of the Ziwiye Treasure are scattered among public and private collections. A 'Ziwiye' provenance may have been applied to comparable objects that have passed through the trade since the 1960s. Items attributed to the hoard are currently in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London. [2] [3] [4]
The archaeologist Oscar White Muscarella has questioned the whole account of the finding of the hoard (as he has done with the older Oxus Treasure), pointing out that none of the items were excavated under archaeological conditions, but passed through the hands of dealers. He concludes 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", and that the objects have no historical and archaeological value as a group", [5] although many are genuine and "exquisite works of art". [6] In a later work Muscarella denounced several "Ziwiye" objects as modern forgeries. [7]
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Saqqez, also known as Saghez, Saqez, Saqqiz, Saqiz, and Sakīz, is a city in the Central District of Saqqez County, Kurdistan province, Iran, and serves as both capital of the district and of the county.
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![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ziwiyeh Castle</span> Citadel and archaeological settlement hill in Iran, [[Rojhalat]]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/%D8%AA%D9%BE%D9%87_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C_%D8%B2%DB%8C%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%87_%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D8%B4%D8%A8.jpg/320px-%D8%AA%D9%BE%D9%87_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C_%D8%B2%DB%8C%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%87_%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D8%B4%D8%A8.jpg)
Luristan bronzes are small cast objects decorated with bronze sculpture from the Early Iron Age which have been found in large numbers in Lorestān Province and Kermanshah in western Iran. They include a great number of ornaments, tools, weapons, horse-fittings and a smaller number of vessels including situlae, and those found in recorded excavations are generally found in burials. The ethnicity of the people who created them remains unclear, though they may well have been Iranian, possibly related to the modern Lur people who have given their name to the area. They probably date to between about 1000 and 650 BC.
The Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting a large area in Central and Southeastern Europe, centred in modern Bulgaria. They were bordered by the Scythians to the north, the Celts and the Illyrians to the west, the Greeks to the south, and the Black Sea to the east.
Tillya tepe, Tillia tepe or Tillā tapa is an archaeological site in the northern Afghanistan province of Jowzjan near Sheberghan, excavated in 1978 by a Soviet-Afghan team led by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. The hoard found there is often known as the Bactrian gold.
The Department of the Middle East, numbering some 330,000 works, forms a significant part of the collections of the British Museum, and the world's largest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq. The collections represent the civilisations of the ancient Near East and its adjacent areas.
The Oxus treasure is a collection of about 180 surviving pieces of metalwork in gold and silver, most relatively small, and around 200 coins, from the Achaemenid Persian period which were found by the Oxus river about 1877–1880. The exact place and date of the find remain unclear, but is often proposed as being near Kobadiyan. It is likely that many other pieces from the hoard were melted down for bullion; early reports suggest there were originally some 1500 coins, and mention types of metalwork that are not among the surviving pieces. The metalwork is believed to date from the sixth to fourth centuries BC, but the coins show a greater range, with some of those believed to belong to the treasure coming from around 200 BC. The most likely origin for the treasure is that it belonged to a temple, where votive offerings were deposited over a long period. How it came to be deposited is unknown.
The Quimbaya (/kɪmbaɪa/) were a small indigenous group in present-day Colombia noted for their gold work characterized by technical accuracy and detailed designs. The majority of the gold work is made in tumbaga alloy, with 30% copper, which colours the pieces.
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The Aegina Treasure or Aigina Treasure is an important Minoan gold hoard said to have been found on the island of Aegina, Greece. Since 1892, it has been part of the British Museum's collection. It is one of the most important groups of Minoan jewellery.
The Carthage Treasure is a Roman silver hoard, which was found in Tunis, Tunisia, at the site of the ancient city of Carthage. The treasure principally consists of silver tableware and jewellery, most of which is now held at the British Museum.
The Lampsacus Treasure or Lapseki Treasure is the name of an important early Byzantine silver hoard found near the town of Lapseki in modern-day Turkey. Most of the hoard is now in the British Museum's collection, although a few items can be found in museums in Paris and Istanbul too.
The Boscoreale Treasure is a large collection of exquisite silver and gold Roman objects discovered in the ruins of the ancient Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale, near Pompeii, southern Italy. Consisting of over a hundred pieces of silverware, as well as gold coins and jewellery, it is now mostly kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris, although parts of the treasure can also be found at the British Museum.
The Asyut Treasure is the name of an important Byzantine hoard of jewellery found near the city of Asyut, central Egypt. Discovered in mysterious circumstances in the early twentieth century, the treasure is now divided between the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin, the British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
Sakez also known as Sekez, Sekakez and Scyth (Eskit) was a sizable urban settlement and historical ancient city in the first millennium BC in Iran. It was the political and military capital of Scythians in western Iran and one of the few ancient cities that has been the residence of people and the center of civilization and it still is. Archaeologists believe that the present-day city of Saqqez in Kurdistan is the remnant of the city of Sakez, which takes its name from the Scythians and, with a slight change in pronunciation, is still called by the same name.
