No bigger than a penny, the Ashante Gold Weights from the Kenneth H. Palmer Collection at the University of Kansas reflect North Africa's history by the way they were used and how they are designed. The Ashante or Akan gold weights are extremely small because their purpose is to weigh as much as a Miktal, or an Islamic ounce. When traders from the north traded with southern Ghana using trade routes around the 14th century, they used gold dust as currency. The gold weights are placed on a pair of scales and the weight is compared with the weight of the traders pile of gold dust. The practice of measuring currency with gold weights was passed down from the Islamic influenced North Africa. Because of the Islamic influence during trade, the early shapes and designs of the weights imitate similar aesthetic qualities of the north. The faith of Islam restricts the depiction of religious icons in art, so geometric shapes and patterns become very important in the art and even represent certain meanings and significant numbers in the Koran (the religious text of the faith). Although the early gold weights may share similar shapes and designs in Islamic art, the designs would have been adopted into Southern Ghana culture but would have held different significance created by the people.

            The gold weights are made from the lost wax method, which was also introduced from the north. The shapes are either additive or subtractive, meaning that the blacksmiths who cast these would have carved into the wax leaving indents or raised designs for the gold to consume when being cast in the ground. The overall shape of all the gold weights are fairly simple, being either square, rectangle, or triangle. One weight is quite unique from the rest because it resembles a step pyramid shape. All of the other weights are fairly flat, but this one has tiny rectangle steps that lead up to a square point. Underneath the pyramid is a round hole that was probably carved out to decrease the weight so the gold still weighs the right amount. Another weight is a small triangle that is pretty flat. The design is very simple because it is only adorned with a smaller raised triangle in the center that repeats the outer shape. The other five gold weights are either rectangle or square but are not very tall. One square weight has a tinier raised square in the center, similar to the triangle weights method, but at the top of the raised square are three lines carved out of it. This leaves the tinier square looking like a comb or a fork. A more rectangle gold weight shares this tiny raised-square design as mentioned above, but inside the raised square are tiny triangles carved out. This leaves a cris-cross-lined pattern in the center part adorned with triangles. The remaining three gold weights all have linear decorations. The blacksmith would have had to carve out all the negative space around the lined decoration in the wax to make these designs. The skinny rectangle weight simply has a four “S” or snake-like lines in the center and a skinny line outlining the center decor. A larger rectangle weight is similar in design to the skinny rectangle weight, except it only has one large “S”-like line in the center but it still has the rectangle line framing it. The final gold weight is a square with a very busy composition on top . The lines are all raised, so the negative space was carved out of the wax. The composition is divided into three vertical parts by two long vertical lines. The two outer parts are simply a repetition of same length horizontal lines shooting out of the dividing vertical lines. In the center section is what looks to be a crescent moon and two circular designs on the top and bottom of the moon. The crescent moon is a direct symbol of the Islamic faith but as said before, the image was adopted but had a different significance to the Ashante or Akan peoples. 

            The gold weights as they exist today are in good shape for being over 500 years old. The surface of the gold has oxidized a bit, but the gold is still very bright and yellow like all of the gold produced from Ghana. The gold weights do look very worn though, like they had been used several times because the outer edges are rubbed down.