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. What resulted was a unique piece, but one that had to be a specific weight to function. 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. Weights may act as display pieces implying wealth in both the size of individual weights and the number owned.
- Some figurative weights evoke well-known Akan proverbs, and more than one proverb, both positive and negative in tone, may apply. This is perhaps particularly true of animal weights. This weight depicting a rooster's head is a call for an appropriate level of response to a situation: "You do not need a big stick to break a cock's head." Don't make a mountain out of a molehill would be an American equivalent.
- Description
- Cast copper alloy figurative weight in the form of a rooster's head with a spiny crest and large bulbous eyes.
- Provenance
- Mr. and Mrs. Eric de Kolb, New York, before 1970
- Bevill Bressler & Schulman, Newark, New Jersey, after 1970 to 1975
- Published References
- University of Notre Dame Art Gallery. 1970. Ashanti Goldweights and Senufo Bronzes: Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eric de Kolb. Notre Dame, no. 520.
- 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 Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks.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/
- Data Source
- National Museum of African Art
- Maker
- Akan artist
- Date
- 18th-late 19th century
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bevill, Mr. and Mrs. Alan Bresler and Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Schulman
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Dimensions
- H x W x D: 2.2 x 4.1 x 1.6 cm (7/8 x 1 5/8 x 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Sculpture
