DROP MECHANICS

One set of mrammou is six digital collectibles. Each drawing is approximately 3x3” on paper. The individual drawings are scanned at 600DPI, adjusted in Photoshop, minted with Manifold and presented on OpenSea for purchase. The digital collectible includes the digital image only.

Drop variations:

• 24 hour auction at predetermined time

• Raffle - twitter or discord raffles with various mechanics

• Private sale

combining mrammous

To request to combine mrammous in the forge, please review the jotform here.

The subject matter of real Akan gold weights often displayed natural events, everyday life, and the honest, harsh truth of the way of life. Animals attack and eat each other, humans get into fights, people complete everyday chores and make sacrifices for good luck. Mrammous are no different, and I am allowing collectors to decide what they want to take place in the mrammou metaverse.

Two categories, which describe the arrangement of two or more mrammous engaging in a “relationship,” are strife and symbiosis. Collectors can “combine” two mrammous from their wallet in the “forge.” The mrammous selected for combining will be issued back to Gossamer, and a new mrammou of the combined weight of the originals will be air dropped once completed. A google form will be used to request a combination.

When combining mrammous, collectors have a few options to determine how they want their mrammous to interact in the final product.

• Strife: Conflict between two mrammous

• Symbiosis: Harmony between two mrammous

• Principal: This is the mrammou that has primary action in the completed product.

• Contributory: This is the mrammou that is the secondary, or subordinate, in the completed product.

For example: mrammou 031 strife 01

• Relationship: strife

• Principal: snake

• Contributory: bird

The metadata for the combined mrammou will indicate the mrammou serial number used for principal and contributory.

The weight value of the combined mrammou will be the sum of the mrammous sent to the forge. You will have the same net weight value as you had when you began the process, leaving you eligible for weight value air drops.

If you have gold dust, you can substitute this token for weight values of your mrammous. Gold dust must total the weight of one or more mrammous you are combining to be valid. When the mrammous are combined, you will keep your mrammou and the gold dust will be sent to Gossamer to be burnt.

If you don’t have mrammous to combine, or don’t want to combine them, I will occasionally make combined mrammous for auction on OpenSea.

Purpose & Inspiration

These illustrations are intended to be celebrated, collected, traded, and hoarded similarly to the objects that inspired them. It was common for a person in Akan society to have quite a few gold weights in tow, in order to participate in trading ordinary items for purchase at the market or otherwise.

To be clear, there is no hard cap on the number of mrammou that will be produced. However, the method of creation is tedious and entirely manual. There is no outsourcing or large team.

This project is Gossamer’s own artistic interpretation of ancient artifacts which already exist in the world. For that reason, Gossamer continues to continue to compile resources, references, and texts that explore the topic in depth, so that the subject matter may interpreted as accurately as possible, with deviation when appropriate.

Gossamer does not claim to be an expert in this subject matter and takes care in adjusting knowledge with new information as it is discovered. It is made clear if a particular mrammou is been created purely by imagination.

History and Reference

Gossamer came across gold weights first on Instagram, after reviewing the extensive collection of Karun Thakar. Having amassed a collection of objects from Asia, India, and Africa over a period of 40 years, Karun’s Instagram was a sneak peek into a museum of beautiful objects made public with the help of social media.

Knowledge and references are drawn mainly from Tom Phillips book, “African Goldweights: Miniature Sculptures from Ghana 1400-1900.” In the course of thirty years, the artist and scholar Tom Phillips acquired an expansive collection of gold weights - and his collection is described with intimate detail in his book.

Before Tom’s publication was an extensive and rare book by Timothy Garrard, “Akan Weights and the Gold Trade,” which Tom heavily references in his book.

For those looking for an introduction to gold weights, I suggest the scholarly article ‘Re-Examining the Akan Gold Weight and its Possible Reuse,’ from the Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: C Sociology & Culture (vol 20 no 6). The link to this simple 7-page PDF is below, and available for anyone to review.

Gossamer has amassed their own collection of real Akan gold weights from reputable galleries and sellers for direct, tangible reference for the Mrammou collection.

Phillips, T 2010, African Goldweights: Miniature Sculptures from Ghana 1400-1900, Thames & Hudson, London / New York

Garrard, T 1980, Akan Weights and the Gold Trade, Longman, London / New York

Owusu Addo, A R & Akomeah, R 2020, ‘Re-Examining the Akan Gold Weight and its Possible Reuse’, Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: C Sociology & Culture, vol 20, no 6. https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS/article/download/3324/3213/

Design

Gossamer first explored the Akan gold weights in tattoo designs and illustration.

After some experimentation, Gossamer believed the work could be more than contours of the sculptures. Gossamer completed a tattoo in color on themselves in December 2020, which served as a reference point to the Mrammou collection on paper with colored pencil. The project started to take shape in early June 2021.