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. Complete small sets of weights were gifts to newly wedded men. This insured that he would be able to enter the merchant trade respectably and successfully.
Beyond their practical application, the weights are miniature representations of West African culture items such as adinkra symbols, plants, animals and people.[2][3]
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Crocodile goldweight -
Geometric goldweight -
Figurative goldweight
- ^ Kouadio, Auguste Yao (2018). Akan Gold Weights: Values Perspectives of a Non-western Cultural Artifact (Thesis). ProQuest 2068135694.[page needed]
- ^ Wilks,Ivor (1997). "Wangara, Akan, and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries". In Bakewell, Peter (ed.). Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas. Aldershot: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Limited. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-86078-513-2.
- ^ Garrard, Timothy F. (1972). "Studies in Akan Goldweights (2) the Weight Standards". Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. 13 (2): 149–162. ISSN 0855-3246.