Looted from the Royal Palace in Kumasi in 1874 during the British sack of the city.
“A composite tobacco pipe (tao-hyefuo) consisting of a lost wax cast gold pipe bowl (a) and its associated wood stem (b) decorated with gold wire with a sheet gold mouthpiece. The pipe bowl itself constitutes a hollow circular tube into which the mouthpiece fits and is decorated with an alternating series of plain and patterned undulating rings. The patterning consists of lines of evenly spaced dots. The curved foot of the pipe is extended at the front to form a squared off rest which is decorated with two panels of vertical zig-zag decoration and a middle panel of lines of vertical dot patterning. The other end of the foot is cast in the form of a scroll. The pipe bowl is surrounded by a corolla of six conical spikes decorated with a series of dot patterns. The hollow wood stem is decorated with a continuous length of twisted two filament wire, perhaps brass or an alloy of brass and gold, which is coiled around it at intervals. The mouthpiece is made from a piece of sheet gold that has been folded into a long cone and the edges soldered together. It is decorated with gold wire that was first coiled into a spring-like form and then wound around it. The tip of the mouthpiece is formed by two rings of gold wire which have been soldered on and a single ring encircles the lower end.” -The British Museum.
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