Travelling in Amsterdam I was drawn to a small bronze piece in an antique shop.  It was an Akan goldweight. 

Akan speaking people (from Ghana) traded in gold in the fifteenth century.  They created decorative weights from brass using the ‘lost wax’ method, to ensure fair exchange of money for gold dust or nuggets.  The abstract or geometric designs are the earliest, and each weight told a story or riddle, and related to a code of conduct in Akan society.  Each weight was functional, artistic and related to Akan culture. 

A study of gold informed me that a total of eighty-eight thousand tons of gold had been extracted from earth. This means all the gold that has been dug up so far in history  (2018) would, if melted, make a cube measuring approximately 25x25x25 meters.  Also, at the end of 2009 there was a total of 165,446 tonnes of gold that had been uncovered. That meant that there was approximately 25 grams of gold per person on the planet.

These pieces of information informed my printmaking, as seen in the images.