An Akan copper aloy vessel

Akan copper-alloy vessels, produced among Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, form a lesser-known but significant corpus of metalwork distinct from the better-known gold regalia. They were generally cast using the lost-wax technique, the same process employed for the production of gold weights, and were made from brass or bronze imported through long-standing trade with European merchants since the fifteenth century.

These vessels, which include bowls, basins, and sometimes anthropomorphic or zoomorphic containers, served primarily in ritual and courtly contexts. Within royal and chiefly settings they held libations, palm wine, or offerings during ceremonies dedicated to ancestors or deities. Their metallic substance was symbolically associated with permanence, prestige, and the luminous qualities of gold, while the copper alloy itself embodied ideas of transformation and vitality connected with the sun and blood.

Stylistically, many Akan vessels bear relief ornament or chased surface patterns echoing textile designs and motifs from gold-weight iconography. A few surviving examples feature figural decoration—human heads, animals, or symbolic forms—suggesting that they were made for elite patrons or used in sacred shrines.

The production centres were probably located in the major gold-working towns such as Bono Manso, Begho, and later Kumasi. These workshops were closely related to the state systems of the Asante and the earlier Akan polities.

Comparable brass and bronze vessels are preserved in collections such as the British Museum, the Musée du quai Branly, and the National Museum of Ghana. Scholars such as D. A. Agyeman, F. Willett, and T. E. S. Mensah have linked them to broader Akan metallurgy and to ritual economies of value where metals were mediators between the living and the ancestors.

See: F. Willett, African Art: An Introduction (Oxford 1971); T. E. S. Mensah, Akan Metal Technology (Accra 1983); D. A. Agyeman, “Brass Casting and Ritual among the Akan,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 9 (1968).