By the 14th century, goldsmiths in the region were manufacturing their own weights, scoops, scales, and boxes for storing gold dust to facilitate trade. The Asante, also known as Ashanti, are an ethnic group among the Akan that utilized their gold wealth to build an empire.

2022年7月28日 · Going to market required a futuo, a bag devoted to carrying the implements of economic life: assorted weights, brushes, scoops, scales, and boxes for transporting gold dust. Learning to use and care for these implements was an important part of growing up, and taking care of the futuo was the responsibility of the head of the household.

Akan goldweights (locally known as mrammou or abrammuo) [1] are weights made of brass used as a measuring system by the Akan people of West Africa, particularly for wei and fair-trade arrangements with one another. The status of a man increased significantly if he owned a complete set of weights.

Weight in the form of a plain rectangular block of brass with a worn raised geometrical pattern. Natural gold resources in the dense forests of southern Ghana brought wealth and influence to the Asante (Ashanti) people. Asante wealth was increased by transporting gold to North Africa via trade routes across the Sahara.

Asante Gold Weights art activity The Asante people of southern Ghana are known for their gold. In addition to mining and trading it they create elaborate gold and metal works of art. Fanciful weights are used to measure gold dust on scales. The gold weights are …

2022年3月15日 · THE ASANTE KINGDOM AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE - A BRIEF HISTORY. In 1900, Britain invaded the Asante Kingdom and its territories known as the Gold Coast - now present day Ghana. The series of battles known as the ‘Asante Wars’ was centred but not limited to the trade of gold, including access to its trading ports.

Although often identified with the Asante, the most numerous and best known of the Akan peoples, weights for measuring gold dust were made and used throughout Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. For more than five centuries, from about 1400 to 1900, Akan smiths cast weights of immense diversity. Their small size made them portable and easy to trade.

2020年10月19日 · These two small brass figurines are Asante (Ashanti) gold weights, used to weigh and measure gold dust. One is in the shape on alligator; the other is a porcupine-like animal. They were donated to the Maxwell Museum in …

2019年10月18日 · This week we installed a new, small display of Asante Goldweights in the Metalware Gallery (Room 116: a bridge gallery off the Ironwork Galleries). It shows small copper-alloy weights formerly used in the gold trade in Asante communities in what is now Ghana, West Africa. These weights are heavy with symbolism.

Asante gold weights by Cambridge Digital Library on Sketchfab Gold dust functioned as a universal medium of exchange in West Africa, measured on scales according to a standardised system of weights. The brass weights and boxes for storing gold dust were decorated with geometric and figurative designs.