Akan gold weights
Pesas de oro akan
- Date
- c. 1400-1900 · confidence medium
- Place
- Kumasi, Ashanti Region, Ghana
- Credited to
- Akan peoples (Asante, Baule and others)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A system of brass weights cast by the lost-wax method, geometric or figurative, for weighing gold dust, which served as currency in the Akan kingdoms for centuries. Many illustrate proverbs and set weight units compatible with Islamic and European ones.
Surviving pieces date mainly to the 17th-19th centuries; the system is thought to have begun c. 1400 from evidence of trade with Begho.
What it led to
- standardised trade in Gold Coast gold
- an archive of Akan proverbs and symbols
- a forerunner of adinkra symbols