Gold Weight (abrammuo): Fish (1800s): Art, History and Details

Gold Weight (abrammuo): Fish (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Gold Weight (abrammuo): Fish
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Asante goldsmith
• Type: Tools and Equipment
• Technique: Copper alloy
• Dimensions: Overall: 2.8 x 6.6 x 0.4 cm (1 1/8 x 2 5/8 x 3/16 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1961.399

A detail from the museum

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.

Collection credit

Gift of William Ellery Greene

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.