Gold weights

Museum number:
5-10572
Permalink:
ark:/21549/hm21050010572
Accession number:
Acc.4036
Description:
Goldweight, brass, lost wax cast; rectangular with seventeen circles indented in three columns on top, 7.43 gm. weight called namfisuru. The everyday businessman's weight for the amount of gold dust used as money in much of West Africa from the 1400s through the 1800s.
Donor:
Franklin H. Williams
Collection place:
Ghana
Verbatim coll. place:
Ghana; Ashanti
Culture or time period:
Ashanti
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Gold-weights
Function:
7.3 Weights, Measures, and Computing Devices
Accession date:
June 1985
Department:
Africa (except Ancient Egypt)
Images:
Hearst Museum object titled Gold weights, accession number 5-10572, described as Goldweight, brass, lost wax cast; rectangular with seventeen circles indented in three columns on top, 7.43 gm. weight called namfisuru. The everyday businessman's weight for the amount of gold dust used as money in much of West Africa from the 1400s through the 1800s.
Legacy documentation:
Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Gold weights, accession number 5-10572, described as Goldweight, brass, lost wax cast; rectangular with seventeen circles indented in three columns on top, 7.43 gm. weight called namfisuru. The everyday businessman's weight for the amount of gold dust used as money in much of West Africa from the 1400s through the 1800s.

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