CC0 · no rights reserved
Spoon
From the collection of National Museum of African Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Until the end of the 19th century, gold dust was used in business transactions by the Asante and related peoples in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. Special spoons known as saawa, usually made of sheet brass, lifted the gold dust from a storage box and placed it on one side of a beam scale to be measured against a weight.
National Museum of African Art’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineSpoon. Late 18th century. Akan artist. National Museum of African Art, Gift of the Roy and Brigitta Mitchell Collection. CC0.
