- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Copper alloy weight for weighing gold, in the shape of a fish tail with circles on three sides.
- Long description
- Copper alloy weight for weighing gold, in the shape of a fish tail with circles on three sides and lead inlay. [MJD DDF Body Arts Project 2010/2011 15/12/2010]
- Cultural groups
- Asante
- Date / Period
- Date made: 1400-1720, uncertain
- Date collected
- By 1938
- Acquisition information
- Bequeathed: 1938
- Materials and processes
- Material Copper Alloy Metal, Process Lost Wax Cast, Material Lead Metal
- Dimensions
- Width: max 20 mm, Length: max 37 mm, Weight 14 g
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1938.18.57
- Research and responses
A similar weight is included in de Kolb (1968) Ashanti Goldweights No.1, Gallery d'Hautbarr: New York, page 43: Symbolic weight. A man who had caught a big fish gave the head to his old wife while his young wife got the rest of the fish. The old wife killed herself with grieves [sic - grief]. The king therefore issued a weight to indicate how fish should not be parted. [MJD DDF Body Arts Project 2010/2011 16/12/2010]
This weight was one of 97 studied by Ryan Brown, an MSc student at Cranfield University, between 2015-2016. Ryan used HH-XRF analysis to determine that the gold weights matched the composition of contemporary Portuguese brasses thus corroborating the literature that identifies Portugal as the source of Akan copper alloys. He also found that across the five centuries of gold weight production their composition did not greatly vary and it is therefore difficult to infer any datable information. The title of his Master’s thesis was “Non-Destructive Compositional Analysis of Akan Copper-Alloy Goldweights from Ghana, in the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford: Characterisation and Provenance” and a copy can be found in RDF under 1938.18.
Search terms: Measurement, Figure, Gold Weight, Fish Figure