Cleveland Museum of Art

Gold Weight (abrammuo): Fish

Date

1800s

Medium

Copper alloy

Culture

Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Asante goldsmith

Department

African Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The wealth and power of the Asante kingdom was derived primarily from its massive gold resources. Since at least 1600, small weights in brass and bronze were used to weigh gold dust and nuggets. The royal court had the most elaborate store of weights, while commoners often had about a dozen. Their imagery falls into two broad cateogries: geometric and representational. The latter often refers to proverbs, which used judiciously, marked a wise person. The prominence of fish-shaped weights in Asante cultures may be linked to the highly held value of wisdom, as the word for fish and wisdom in the Asante language is the same: adwene .

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