This is a small African brass pendant in the shape of a crocodile. It may very well have a proverbial significance in Akan iconography but we are unaware of what that is. Clearly, even though its modern function is as a pendant it would have been made traditionally as a gold weight.

Like all of our African brass pendants it has a loop on the top, allowing it be hung or worn as a pendant necklace. In the same way as all of our authentic, handmade brass objects this pendant was made by the ancient traditional lost wax casting process where the object is first shaped of bees wax then covered with a sand & clay investment. This unit is dried and then baked so the investment hardens and the wax runs out leaving the space into which the molten brass is poured. Once cooled the investment is removed to yield the object so cast. Every single object of this type, no matter how small, is made this same way, one by one, by hand. As a result of this handmade process each pendant is unique although the design of all is very similar; each pendant has small differences.

In some cases, however, those differences modify the appearance to such an extent that we consider those to be imperfections, or miscast.

2 1/8" long (4 cm)