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⁴² Figured on a rather fine gold weight in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

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⁴⁴ Private communication from Tim Garrard.

⁴⁵ Williams in discussing a Nubian gold object wrote (p. 182) it ‘is solid and therefore probably not cast cire-perdue’. This is a non sequitur as most small objects made by the are-perdue method (such as gold weights) are solid.

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⁵¹ I am most grateful to Miss Christine Fox, the sculptress who worked with brass casters in Kumasi and who works extensively in brass, for these points.

⁵² Westcott, R. W., ‘Ancient Egypt and Modern Africa’ J. Afr. Hist., ii (1961), 311–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁵⁴ Margaret Webster Plass, African Miniatures: The Gold Weights of the Ashanti (London, 1967)Google Scholar, and McLeod, Malcolm, Ashanti Gold-Weights (British Museum Publications Limited, London, 1976)Google Scholar, give the impression that gold weights were made exclusively by the Asante. Though responsible perhaps for some of the finest figurative pieces, the weights began long before the Asante State came into being. They were also made by the Akan of the Ivory Coast.

⁵⁵ Information from Mr Tim Garrard to whom I am grateful for his insights into the gold weight system.