Dina Pritmani
Research Dates: January - May 2025
Website:
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/objects/146444
.Ashanti Gold, Ethnic Jewels Magazine.
Gold was significant to the Akan people before the 16th century. The Akan involvement in the gold trade with their neighbors traces back to the Trans-Sahara route going from Timbuktu and Djenne (Kouadio, 2018). By the end of the fifteenth century, the presence of gold mines and find gold ornaments are mentioned to be located on the coast of the Gold Coast in Portugese and Castilian accounts (Garrard, 1973).
Gold was being mined and traded by weight even before the arrival of Europeans, as a 15th-century Elmina royal was described as being ornamented with plates of gold while wearing a large gold necklace. The large amount of ornamentation suggests that the people of the Gold Coast, specifically the women were decorated with various jewels, particularly those made of gold (Anquandah, 2013).
While gold dust currency might have been unknown in Ashanti until shortly before 1700 according to tradition, the Akan (which include the Ashanti) were aware that gold, whether alluvial dust or mined nuggets, was conceptually and materially at the very core of their society and culture (Kouadio, 2018).
The availability of gold allowed the Ashanti state to develop, as this material was not just seen as a form of wealth for the Akan people. It was embedded with spiritual value, especially among leaders (Quarcoopome, 1997). In the Ashanti society, gold dust was decreed as currency by King Osei Tutu, advised by Okomfo Anokye who stressed the importance of Ashanti prestige (Kouadio, 2018).
.Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1990.221.78_front_PS5.jpg.
Abrammuo (Gold-weight) : geometric
Region: Akan
Date: ca. 1700–1900.
Material: Copper alloy
Measurements: Width: 1 1/2 in, height: 1.5 cm.
Location/Provenance: Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Shirley B. Williams
Accession number: 1990.221.78.
Creative Commons-BY
.Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1990.221.14_front_PS5.jpg.
Region: Akan
Date: 19th century
Material: Brass
Measurements: 5 1/4 in. (length: 11.7 cm width: 3.7 cm dia.: 4.0 cm)
Location/Provenance: Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Shirley B. Williams
Accession number: 1990.221.14.
Creative Commons-BY
.Akan States, Britannica.
The Akan community migrated to their current location in Ghana over centuries from the Savannah areas to the north, from West Sudan. One group settled in the north of Kumasi in the 14th century, establishing the kingdom of Bono, which gained wealth from northern trade (Garrard, 1972). The Ashanti tribe adopted gold weights from the Inta people, whom they conquered (Garrard, 1972).
.Akan states map, Art of Akan, by Nii Otokunor Quarcoopome.
The practice of gold trading and weighing tradition existed in Akan society. The Akan’s involvement in the gold trade with their neighbors traces back to the trans-Sahara route (Quarcoopome, 1997).
Ghana served as a southern terminal for the trans-Saharan trade and a collecting and distributing point for trade. Arab writers from the 10th to 14th centuries described how gold was exchanged for copper in the Sudan and the Fezzan (Ott, 1968). Arab writer, Al-Bakri recorded that in 1067, the king of Ghana imposed taxes on salt and merchandise loads, payable in gold dinars or mitkals (Fage, 1957). Additionally, Yaqut, a geographer from Baghdad, mentions that a “silent trade” dumb barter for gold carried on at Ghana’s farther borders with the natives of the gold-bearing lands of the upper Senegal and upper Niger (Fage, 1957).
While the important Akan goldfields further south do not appear to have been exploited until about the fourteenth century, it is likely that the people of gold-bearing regions were aware of the presence of gold long before from the nuggets that were washed up due to heavy rains (Garrard, 1982). These nuggets would then be developed into various items such as shell beads, or simple forms of adornment (Garrard, 1982).
.A selection of Akan goldweights, JSTOR Daily.
The Akan culture is rich and multifaceted, encompassing a language of material culture, social structures, and belief systems. The language of the region has several different dialects spoken in the different communities of Ghana, and is the first language for approximately 49.1% of Ghanaians (Kuwornu-Adjaottor, 2015). It also serves as a medium of instruction in early primary education while being used as a form of communication in churches and during trade (Kuwornu-Adjaottor, 2015).
The Akan language is known for it’s rich history in oral traditions, proverbs and sayings that served as a substitute to the written language. These oral expressions were often translated into various material cultures, such as the gold weights as they would be designed with various proverbs (Ott, 1968). These pieces would have served to convey a symbolic meaning based on how they were used.
Material forms of Akan culture include linguistic staff, stools, jewelry, gold weights, traditional cloths, umbrella tops, and modern wax prints (Kuwornu-Adjaottor, 2015). Among these Abrammuo: gold weights (made of brass alloy with geometrical and figurative symbols) as they were essential objects in everyday Akan life (Mollat, 2003). These pieces played a crucial role in the social, economic, and political stability of the nation (Kouadio, 2018).
Similarly, the spoons used in conversation with these weights reflected the region’s value of gold as both a spiritual and economic material.
.Regional Map from https://blackdemographics.com/african-american-ancestry-the-akan-states-of-the-gold-coast/ .
Akan is referenced as a broader ethno-linguistic group encompassing various subgroups who speak related dialects and share cultural similarities (Kiyaga-Mulindwa 1980).
These subgroups include Fante, Akuapem, Asante, Bono, Wassa, Agona, Akyem, and Kwahu, among others (Quarcoopome, 1997).
Asante (sometimes spelled Ashanti) is one of the major subgroups within the Akan people, known for their powerful historical kingdom and significant cultural contributions (Martino, 2020).
They are known for their dialect called Twi, which like other Akan dialects, is deeply rooted in oral traditions (Bartle, 1983).
Thus, it can be seen that the Asante are part of the broader Akan cultural and linguistic group –– as all Asante are Akan, but not all Akan are Asante.
. The Guinea coast and western Sudan, The Akan and Ghana by Eva L. Meyerowitz.
The Ashanti kingdom rose to prominence in the beginning of the 18th century. The Ashanti state was formed by the confederacy of states brought together by the creation of the golden stool around 1700 (Garrard, 1973). They were known for their wealth in gold and their sophisticated cultural practices, as their king had strategically attracted skilled craftsmen, including goldsmiths to their capital Kuamasi– from conquered states like Denkyira and Tekyiman– fostering a blend of artistic influences (McLeod, 1971).
The Ashanti nation migrated greatly and contributed to the group’s relationship with gold and wealth. Their migration to the Ghanaian coast provides easy access to kola nuts and gold, hallmarks of trade (Fage, 1957). This allowed for their empire to thrive, and by the 16th century, the Ashanti were steeped in economic prosperity, which allowed for the eventual creation of the goldweight and dust system.
.Map of the northern and western regions of Africa showing Akan and trans-Saharan trade routes, Detroit Institute of Arts.
The Akan region were involved in the Trans-Saharan gold trade, which allowed them to connect with the Western Sudanese coast and the northern Maghreb (Kouadio, 2018).
This trade route facilitated the exchange of goods, culture, and people, while introducing new ideas, including Islam and metal casting and weighing technologies, to the Ashanti nation (Kouadio, 2018).
The gold obtained from these exchanges, and areas north and west of Bono was traded to major centers like Jenne, Timbuktu, and Gao, where metal weights and scales were in use by the 14th century (Garrard, 1972).
Through this, Islamic weight standards, such as the mithqal and wakia, were likely introduced to the Akan through Mande traders around 1400 and became the basis for their gold weight system (Garrard, 1982).
.Opulent gold coinage from Ptolemaic Egypt, Stack’s Bowers Galleries, 2024.
The Trans-Saharan trade provided a regular low of gold bullion from West Africa to North Africa, aiding in fueling the creation of extensive gold coinage across the Mediterranean world.
This supply of gold enabled the extensive creation of gold coinage in North Africa, notably at the Byzantines at Carthage (from 534 to 695 CE) and later under the Arab rule in mints like Kairouan (from 695 CE onwards) (Garrard, 1982). When the Byzantine control of Carthage ended, the Arabs eventually inherited these trade routes, creating a continuous flow of gold from the same source, presumably West Africa (Garrard, 1982).
Earlier, in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., Ptolemaic Egypt had an extensive gold coinage system that was likely derived from melting down foreign currencies and probably also gold that was mined in Nubia and the Eastern Desert (Garrard, 1982).
Although early Egyptian gold coinage (3rd-2nd centuries BC) likely drew on sources like Nubia and the Eastern Desert, later periods saw gold circulating in Egypt (Garrard, 1982). This had set a precedent for Egypt’s appetite for bullion.
By the 12th and 15th century, gold pieces were circulating as bullion in Egypt, rather than coinage (Garrard, 1982). Arab writers such as Yakut highlighted that the exchange of gold for copper was mainly occurring in regions such as Sudan and Fezzan, regions that were directly linked to the trans-Saharan trade routes (Ott, 1968). These networks eventually connected to the Akan goldfields — present-day Ghana.
.Five Akan brass goldweights, Ghana, Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, 2021, Sotheby’s.
Abrammuo : gold weights were a set of miniature weights, typically made of brass alloy, used by the Akan people of Ghana (and the Anyi and Baule areas of Ivory Coast) to weigh gold dust, which served as currency before colonial times (Garrard, 1972). They came in various forms, including geometrical motifs and figurative symbols representing animals, plants, people, and objects (Ott, 1968).
Additionally, Nsawa: spoons were seen as an essential apparatus, that was often kept in the futuo: a leather bag, that held other items such as miniature gold weights (Ott, 1968). These spoons would be used to scoop up gold dust, that would be placed onto the scales to be measured.
Today, they serve as a reminder of pre-colonial Akan society, through their sophisticated economic system, artistic traditions, and rich oral heritage.
.Ashanti lost wax casting in Krofofrom, Ghana.
Most metal gold weights and spoons were made by specialist craftsmen, often goldsmiths, using the lost-wax casting (cire perdue) technique (McLeod, 1971). This process involved shaping the desired object in wax, followed by encasing it in clay to form a mold, then melting out the wax, and then pouring molten brass alloy into the mold (McLeod, 1971). Once the metal cooled, the clay mold was broken to reveal the final cast weight (McLeod, 1971).
This method had been developed through the conquests of other Akan states, such as Denkyira in 1701 and Tekyiman in 1723, where the Ashanti community had carried off many of the best craftsmen, including goldsmiths, and forced them to work in Kumasi (Garrard, 1973).
Through this conquest, captured Denkyira craftsmen taught the Ashanti how to make brass weights and state emblems decorated with gold (Garrard, 1973). A similar process occurred after the defeat of Tekyiman and Akyem in 1742, with their goldsmiths also being brought to Kumasi (Garrard, 1973).
Over time, goldsmithing came to be regarded as a highly respected craft within the Akan society, often passed down from father to son (Ott, 1968). Along with the skills of the trade, sons would also inherit the tools used to create the gold weights, spoons and the other ceremonial or utilitarian objects (Ott, 1968). This form of craftsmanship was not only valued for its artisanal expertise, as it also carried ritualistic and social significance (Witek, 1966).
.Annotated map from Encyclopedia Britannica to depict the development of skills.
The Akan, including the Ashanti, learned complex metalworking techniques like the cire perdue (lost wax) method from the further north (Garrard, 1972). This technique was already known in West Africa well before the arrival of the Portuguese (Garrard, 1972). The knowledge of brass casting also likely came from the northern metalworking traditions, where artisans had along-established practice of producing various brass objects. Although these core techniques predated European contact, interactions with Europeans played a huge role.
In 1708, the Dutch sent gifts to Osei Tutu, including wax specifically intending goldsmiths’ use, illustrating the importance of metal casting at the time (Garrard, 1973). Interestingly, this exchange, was not one-sided, as designs from Akan gold-dust spoons were possibly influenced by European silverware (Garrard, 1973).
While external influences were important, internal development played a huge role in the innovation of distinctive figurative gold weight formsduring the Early Period (Garrard, 1973). A key factor in this flourishing craftsmanship was the deliberate policy of the Ashanti kings to attract and utilize skilled goldsmiths, particularly from conquered territories (Garrard, 1973). This, combined with existing Akan traditions of metalworking and external influences from the north and later from Europe, contributed to the flourishing of this craft within the Ashanti kingdom (Garrard, 1973).
.Image of 57 goldweights, High Museum of Art.
Akan gold weights are indeed often categorized into distinct stylistic periods. The Early Period and the Late Period.
These periods highlight the differences in their styles, and potentially their meanings or primary purposes. As well as the aspects of their manufacture and appearance due to age and technique.
Early Period:
Dated roughly 1400-1720.
Engraved styles 1400-1700, carved styles 1500-1720.
Early figurative weights date from 1600 onwards.
(Kouadio, 2018)
Late Period:
Dated roughly 1700-1900. About 80% of weights fall into this period.
Production ceases around 1900.
(Garrard, 1973)
.Early period engraved weights, PLATE 1, Class 1 – Class 5, Studies in Akan goldweights (IV) the dating of Akan goldweights, Timothy F. Garrard.
GEOMETRIC | EARLY PERIOD
Gold weights during from the early period usually include forms such as truncated double cones (some with fine surface engraving or impressed dots, others plain), square or rectangular forms with simple parallel bars, polygonal shapes, four-sided pyramids (simple, some with embellishments), and weights with indented edges (these are ‘geometric’ weights) (Garrard, 1973).
Some early geometric forms, like the truncated double cone, have antecedents in Islamic countries and can be traced back to Roman weights (Garrard, 1973).
.Late period weights, PLATE 4, Studies in Akan goldweights (IV) the dating of Akan goldweights, Timothy F. Garrard.
GEOMETRIC | LATE PERIOD
Late Period weights commonly features a raised, comb-like border on two sides. The decoration between these borders often features the curling motif known as ‘the ram’s horn’ dwanimen, which appears to be a new design for this period (Kouadio, 2018).
Many designs are carved in high relief with elaborate patterns like wavy lines, zigzags, circles, lattices, crosses, stars, and spirals (Garrard, 1973). A distinctive class of rectangular weights with crude designs of file and punch-marks emerged late in this period (Garrard, 1973).
.Figurative weights depicting various creatures, ca. 18th-19th century, brass, Detroit Institute of Arts.
FIGURATIVE | EARLY PERIOD
These are a scarce but easily recognizable through their boldness and simplicity. They usually depict aspects of military prowess, with intent to highlight the chief and the state, showing figures like warriors with shields, executioners, drummers, and regalia like state swords and war-horns (Garrard, 1973).
Other early figurative types include small, simple birds (often with spiral wings), fishes, simple animals, stools, bellows, keys, and treasure chests (Garrard, 1973). Early human figures tend to be larger, simpler, and more solid. Some have archaic features like tubular or hollow bodies, distinctive hairstyles, and some are shown naked, which seems to be a very early characteristic (Garrard, 1973).
.Gold weight, 19th-20th century, Penn Museum.
FIGURATIVE | LATE PERIOD
Figures from the late period are generally smaller, more sophisticated, and elaborate (Garrard, 1973). They usually have some form of clothing, unlike many early goldweights. The subjects of gold weights during this time continue to include earlier military/state themes but in distinct styles (Garrard, 1973).
.Men in the process of weighing gold dust, photographed on the Ivory Coast in 1892. From Marcel Monnier’s France Noire Cote d’Ivoire et Soudan, 1894.
Gold dust functioned as a primary form of currency in Akan society. Transactions were often coducted by carefully weighing gold dust using a set of abrammuo (gold weights) and a simple beam scale with nsania (circular pans) (Kouadio, 2018).
To ensure a seamless process is created, Nsawa (smaller spoons), were used to scoop and place the gold dust onto the scale pans for measurement against the standardized gold weights (McLeod, 1971). Famfa (broad shallow scoops) were employed to blow away any impurities, ensuring an accurate measurement was recorded (McLeod, 1971).
.Spoon, Akan, 19th century.
The image depicts a cast brass spoon for handling gold dust with small pieces of copper (copper insets) set into the brass (Newton, 1982). This feature is not commonly found in other kinds of Akan metalwork; suggesting that this might have had a specific ––symbolic or decorative, significance for this particular type of spoon (Garrard, 1973).
.Gold Dust Box (abamphruwa), Akan peoples, Asante, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Ashanti started using gold dust currency sometime around the late 17th or early 18th century.
Before the reign of King Osei Tutu (crowned in 1701) or his predecessor Adu Gyamfi, gold-dust currency was unknown in Ashanti (Garrard, 1972). King Osei Tutu’s spiritual advisor, Okomfo Anokye, “stressed the importance of Ashanti prestige advise the use gold dust as currency rather than the smelted iron in the form of disc rods known as nnabuo, then decreed the use of the gold weights as an institutionalize tool of measurement in the gold dust transaction” (Kouadio, 2018).
A formal adoption of gold dust as currency and the institutionalized use of gold weights around the beginning of the 18th century under Osei Tutu (Kouadio, 2018).
The early eighteenth century is also marked by the universal adoption of an internal gold-dust currency in Ashanti, which coincided with the rise of the Ashanti empire (Garrard, 1973).
.Gold Weight- Geometric, Akan peoples, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Akan weight system was a sophisticated fusion of multiple measurement standards. Individual weights represented various fractions and multiples base units, each with its own name (Garrard, 1982).
A study of thousands of Akan gold weights (by Garrard) revealed that their actual mass closely aligned with the known gram values, to ensure these measurements had a high degree of consistency and precision (Garrard, 1983).
Therefore, Akan gold weights were based on several weight standards, primarily derived from:
Islamic Standards: Based on the mithqal (around 4.4-4.5 grams) used for gold and the wakia (around 26-27 grams) used for silver and other commodities. (Garrard, 1972)
Portuguese Standards: Based on the Portuguese ounce (28.7 grams) (Garrard, 1972).
Troy Standards: Based on the troy ounce (31.1 grams), introduced later (Garrard, 1972).
.Goldweights in the shape in different artefacts, The Museum of African Arts.
Islamic-standard gold weights likely emerged among the northern Akan around 1400, with it’s use spreading rapidly south––particularly towards the coast (Garrard, 1973). This development coincided with the increased contact of Mande traders, who had obtained gold from the Akan community by the mid-fourteenth century (Garrard, 1973). They had also established the trading settlement of Begho (or Nsoko) within the Akan territory (Garrard, 1973).
These traders introduced the Islamic mithqal and uqiya weight standards, that eventually became fundamental to the to the Akan gold weight system (Garrard, 1972).
The Bono people, who inhabited the land later conquered by the Ashanti, adopted the idea of gold weights from the fourteenth-century markets of the Sudan (Garrard, 1972). By the late fifteenth century, Portuguese and Castilian accounts confirm the existence of gold mines and the use of weights of Islamic standard on the coast (Garrard, 1972).
.Map of British Empire in Africa, British Empire site.
European traders introduced their own weights and currency systems as they established trade relationships on the Gold Coast (Garrard, 1972). While the Portuguese arrived first and used weights like the peso and cruzado, which persisted locally into the eighteenth century (Garrard, 1972). Other European powers like the Dutch and English also became prominent trading partners as they each introduced their own additional systems of measurements (Garrard, 1972).
By the nineteenth century, English sterling currency had begun to influence the Akan gold weighing system (Ott, 1968). This practice likely originated on the coast, where English currency was first encountered (Garrard, 1973). Thus, the value of gold dust became tied to a troy ounce of gold priced at £3.12 (Garrard, 1973). This cash value for an ounce of gold dust appeared in official ordinances in 1880 and 1889, the latter of which abolished the gold-dust currency (Mollat, 2003).
As colonial systems took over, the practical use of gold weights and it’s related tool, such as brass spoons for for measuring gold dust, began to declined (Ott, 1968). Though some craftsmen continued to produce them, especially for sale to Europeans as curios, their central role in economic and social life diminished (McLeod, 1971). The symbolic and transactional system of values associated with these goldw eights became largely superfluous (McLeod, 1971).
Thus, the eventual fall of the Ashanti kingdom to British colonial forces, and the introduction of the imperial coinage caused the gold weight system to lose it’s functional significance overall (Ott, 1968).
.the image on the left represents the potential similarities between gold weights and Adinkra cloths. collage from the Penn Museum.
Adinkra symbols had a huge influence in Ghana. These symbols were usually printed on textiles, pottery and the Adinkra cloth itself (Kuwornu-Adjaottor, 2015)
Akans historically used Adinkra cloth as a form of visual communication, conveying messages non-verbally through the symbolic meanings of the motifs (Martino, 2020).
Kente cloths are another that emobody proverbs and saying, many of which express Akan philosophies (Appiah, 1979). This is similar to the gold weights, as some of these motifs carried on deeper meanings (Kuwornu-Adjaottor, 2015).
By at least the early 1890s, British producers began using Adinkra motifs in factory-printed cloth (Martino, 2020). This introduced Adinkra to a wider audience before Akans expanded the culturally regulated uses of hand-printed Adinkra cloth (Martino, 2020).
.Image of the Brooklyn Museum, by the Brooklyn Museum.
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