Antique African Cast Copper/Bronze Currency Bracelet

An excellent example of a very old cast copper/bronze currency bracelet from Central Africa (also called a Janberry from sources I have met).

Although this was considered currency there is a difference between currency and money.

Examples such as this one were used as a storage of wealth and when metal was needed for either large transactions or when tools, weapons or cooking utensils were needed these were smelted down.

These currency brackets provided the materials to make the objects with and they were not used to go shopping at the market with.

“Metalworking has ancient beginnings in Africa. Archaeologists have dated slag from iron smelting furnaces to 300 B.C. Since copper smithing and casting is a simpler process than smelting iron, it is likely that works of copper predated even this early date. 

Bracelets, anklets and collars that were cast or hammered from copper had little circulation and were never used in connection with routine transactions. Instead, they served as reservoirs of wealth in a form that was easy to store and transport. This storage function is best illustrated in the very heavy bracelets and anklets of the Congo River region. To create some of these bracelets, such as that of the Ekonda, the artists poured molten metal directly into a cast in the ground called a puddle mold. As the metal cooled, it was wrapped into a circular shape and often even fitted directly to the wearer's body”

Source: Smithsonian National Museum of African Art 

Size: 51/2” l x 4” w x 41/2” d