A beautiful and rare, museum-quality gold weight made by the Ashanti people in Ghana in the 19th century. Gold not only brought prosperity to the Ashanti through trade but was also considered the earthly counterpart to the sun and the material embodiment of kra, or life force. To better control and regulate the trade in gold, merchants and rulers developed weights that set standard units of measure. Beyond their practical application, the weights are miniature representations of West African cultural items. This is a true little masterpiece, made with the lost wax technique, and shaped like a coiled snake, depicted with great realism and fine details, its tightly coiled body and pronounced eyes suggesting alertness and preparedness—a common symbol of leadership and wisdom in many West African societies. There are similar gold weights but of much lesser quality in the collection of the British Museum/ London and in the Brooklyn Museum (see last photos with a screenshot). Provenance: private collection, Paris, it has its old stand with a labels 3,3 cm high (with stand) 3,4 X 3,4 cm Overall good condition, mounted on a beautiful, and the stand has some wear. A piece with a beautiful presence of much finer quality and details than goldweights in museum collections.