In June 2011, Banda Research Project team member Amanda Logan collaborated with local artist Kwame K.B. 2 to develop paintings for the Banda Cultural Centre's courtyard doors. The paintings illustrate handicrafts practiced in the area for which we have archaeological evidence. Here Kwame K.B. 2 stands next to his painting of a woman carrying pottery to market. Ahenkro, 8 June, 2011.
Ama Donkor, a Nafana potter, sits as she uses moist clay to form the base of a soup pot (chiin sinyjͻlͻ in Nafaanra). She is adding the base to a body and rim that she made the day before and set aside to dry. The clay pot rests on a metal plate that she can turn as she works (kpankpa in Nafaanra). She adds small lumps of clay as she gradually builds the rounded base of the pot. Three photos. Dorbour, 1994.
Banda Queen Mother Lelԑԑ Akosua Kepefu (center) shows an example of locally made strip-woven cloth to a young painter as a model for a painting on the Banda Cultural Centre doors. Enoch Mensah holds one end of the cloth. To the right, Afua Fofie, Linguist, looks on with artist Kwame K.B. 2. They stand on Ahenkro's main street (view towards the south). Ahenkro, 5 June, 2011.
Archaeological excavations of Mound 6 at Ngre Kataa in 2009 expose a workshop where blacksmiths produced iron and copper-alloy tools and ornaments. The mound is being excavated in 2 x 2 meter units named for the coordinates of their northeast corner. In unit 50N 0W (foreground), an area of burned soil marks the location where blacksmiths heated metals. A pottery jar sits in place to the right. In surrounding units (50N 2W, 48N 0W, 48N 2W) are large anvil stones where the hot metals would have been hammered and shaped through forging. The mound's stratified deposits suggest that the workshop area was used for many decades, and perhaps centuries, between the years of about 1350 and 1520 CE (Common Era). View across the mound from the northeast looking towards the southwest. Site Ngre Kataa. 27 June, 2009.
A crucible used to process copper alloys from Kuulo Kataa, Mound 130, Unit 95E 102N, Level 12. Crucibles like this would have been used to heat copper alloys to a liquid state for use in casting, including casting through a lost-wax process. Scale in cm. Kuulo Kataa, 27 June, 2000.
Rights:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
Publisher:
University of Victoria Libraries
Provenance:
Kuulo Kataa, Mound 130, Unit 95E 102N, Level 12
Location(s) Facet:
Kuulo Kataa
Subjects Facet:
Handicraft; Metal casting; Metalworking; Copper alloys; Lost wax casting; Archaeology; Lost-wax process; Crucibles; Artifacts (Antiquities)
Spindle whorls (gԑndԑ kaan in Nafaanra) are made by Muslim men in Kokua, a village on the Sampa-Asri road. Here a man decorates fired clay whorls, applying bands of colors (white, red, yellow) to their dark surface. He applies the color using a stylus, twisting the whorl to create horizontal bands around the whorl's circumference. In the foreground a finished spindle whorl sits on top of unpainted whorls in a metal pot. A bundle of thin wooden spindles sits at the man's foot, next to a calabash that holds white pigment. Yellow pigment is held by another container, possibly a turtle shell (carapace). Next to it, a red pigment stone (ochre) rests on a heavily worn grinding stone. The beauty of such a painted spindle whorl inspired the Nafaanra proverb "Chlͻ were nyu na gԑndԑ yi" (The woman is as beautiful as the spindle whorl.") Archaeological examples of whorls found on late 18th- and 19th-century sites in the Banda area are often shaped like these from Kokua, but few show signs of paint, perhaps because it has worn off during use. Kokua, 1994.
A man in Dompofie makes a basketry tray (gbrewa in Nafaanra). He uses a (metal?) tube as a frame. First the warp slats are placed at intervals on the frame. Then the weft slats are interwoven with the weft, starting from the center and working outward to the edges. Trays like this could be used in crop processing or for temporarily storing foodstuffs. A finished, well-worn basketry tray is visible, upper left, leaning against a pole. Dompofie, 1995.
A spindle (gԑndԑ in Nafaanra) and a spindle whorl (gԑndԑ kaan in Nafaanra) used to make cotton thread. A black camera lens cap shows scale. For much of the 20th century, spinning was a routine activity for women. Some of the spun cotton thread was dyed blue. The blue thread was woven together with white thread to make durable strip-woven cloths that were highly valued. The rounded spindle whorl is made from fired clay and painted with white and red designs. The spindle whorl's decoration inspired the Nafaanra proverb: "Chlͻ were nyu na gԑndԑ yi" (The woman is as beautiful as the spindle whorl." Archaeologists have found spindle whorls on Banda-area archaeological sites dating to the late 18th and early 19th century. Before that time it seems that spinning cotton was not a routine household activity and that cloth was made in market centers. The spindle whorl is laying on a courtyard floor, with an eroding plaster layer visible in the background. Gbao, September, 1982.
Surface next to the deep clay pit where potters form Bondakile mine the clay they use for making pottery. Piles of excavated clay surround the pit. Bondakile, October, 1982.
These partially formed clay jars (chͻ in Nafaanra) are drying, resting on the palette (kpankpa in Nafaanra) on which they were formed. Once dried to a leather-hard state, the potter removes them from the plate and, using fresh moist clay, adds a rounded base to the jar. To the left, a metal cooking vessel rests nearby. Bondakile, October, 1982.