Weight
Object Details
- Label Text
- 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. Each weight was cast individually in the lost-wax method, resulting in a unique piece, but one that had to be a specific weight to function. Direct casting, a variation in the lost wax casting method, used an actual object rather than a wax model. In this example a crab was transformed into a weight.
- The shape or figure of a weight did not correspond to a set unit of measure: a porcupine in one set could equal an antelope in another, or a geometric form in a third. For important transactions, gold dust was placed on one side of a small, handheld balance scale, a weight on the other. Each party to the dealing verified the amount of gold dust using his or her own weights.
- Description
- Copper alloy figurative weight in the form of a direct cast of a crab.
- Provenance
- Bevill Bressler & Schulman, Newark, New Jersey, -- to 1975
- Exhibition History
- Currents: Water in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 2016-ongoing
- BIG/small, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., January 17-July 23, 2006
- African Emblems of Status, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 29, 1982-April 3, 1983
- Content Statement
- As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
- Image Requests
- High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bevill, Mr. and Mrs. Alan Bresler and Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Schulman
- Data Source
- National Museum of African Art
- Date
- 18th-late 19th century
- Object number
- 75-22-597
- Maker
- Akan artist
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Sculpture
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Dimensions
- H x W x D: 1.3 x 3.5 x 2.5 cm (1/2 x 1 3/8 x 1 in.)
- Geography
- Ghana
- Côte d'Ivoire
- See more items in
- National Museum of African Art Collection
- Exhibition
- Currents: Water in African Art
- On View
- NMAfA, Third Level Corridor
- Object Name
- abrammuo
- Topic
- crab
- male
- Trade
- Record ID
- nmafa_75-22-597
