Slide 1
Akan goldweights combined sculpture with trade
Akan goldweights were used with gold in trade. Their small sculptural forms belonged to a practical system of measuring value.
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The weights themselves were commonly brass rather than gold. The name refers to the material being weighed, not necessarily the metal from which the object was made.
Slide 2
An agreed weight helped buyers and sellers measure value
Gold trade relied on units of weight that buyers and sellers could use. A weight connects a physical object to an agreed measure.
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The system developed through wider trading relationships, including North African and European contacts. Its history belongs to an interconnected commercial world rather than an isolated local invention.
Slide 3
Weights could be geometric or figurative
Akan weights include geometric designs and recognisable animals, people or objects. Their visual variety extends beyond what weighing alone requires.
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Figurative imagery could refer to the rich world of Akan proverbs. A practical measuring object could thus also prompt a cultural association for someone familiar with that tradition.
Slide 4
An elephant shape joined detail with social meaning
An elephant-shaped weight makes a recognisable creature into a compact object. Its form invites attention to both sculptural detail and social meaning.
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A proverb association requires specific evidence. The presence of an animal is not enough to prove which saying a maker or user intended, especially outside the original context.
Slide 5
Museum display can obscure the original weighing function
In a museum, a goldweight may be encountered mainly as miniature sculpture. Its original connection to scales and gold dust can recede from view.
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The Asante kingdom belonged to the larger Akan cultural and trading world. Naming that relationship prevents one political history from standing in for every community that made and used weights.
Sources
- Gold in Asante Courtly Arts
Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Elephant gold weight
Metropolitan Museum of Art