Paleocures

This name is given to cauris, ceramic beads, bronze handles and bracelets, small bronze or iron bars, tools and tools of tillage, and even raffia fabrics and everything that served as currency of exchange or purchase to the Africans before the arrival of the Europeans, occupying the gold powdered or in nuggets a very important place.

These coins were also used in almost all West Africa and received different names depending on location, Kilindi, Gitzi or Ghisi. Not only did they serve for bartering, but in the societies in which the pore was implanted they served as a gift to the initiates and had the value of offerings that were kept alongside objects of power such as masks, statues of ancestor, amulets or divinatory objects. Sometimes they merge to make tools or weapons or become part of amalgams intended to conjure evil spirits into certain funeral rites.

These coins have still been used in Côte d'Ivoire over several centuries. It's rare to find pieces of this antiquity. They're covered in a strong patina of time.