Weight Akan

Piece certainly from the group I baulé according to the study by H.Abel. Weights greater than 80 o 90 grams were considered real weights and were only possessed by kings and notables. These pieces were used in the Baule territory until well into the century XX. They are all different, both in shape and in size or weight. All of them are decorated with different motifs on their surface. These motifs constitute a true code of signs, a language known only to the high initiated. Fr. Georges Niangoran Nbouah, q.e.p.d. left us an extensive three-volume treatise on the weights of weighing gold, certainly the first and most in-depth study on the subject.

Rectangular piece. In its central part a line divides the rectangle into two parts. This line passes through it in its longest sense and at each end is finished off by two small circles, one on each side of the line. The inner rectangle is delimited by four embossed lines from which small lines go to the edges, forming a kind of teeth or combed spikes, which served to facilitate the calculation of weight. Its weight is of 50,9 grams and their dimensions of 4,2x3,8 cms.