Carved wood stool of traditional Ghanaian form; with upcurved seat, on an organically carved base and rectangular stepped base.

In Ghana, ceremonial stools of this kind were made by the Asante people for chiefs and other officeholders.

The central carving beneath the seat is in the shape of an adinkra symbol called gye nyame, meaning ‘supremacy of god’. Adinkra symbols had originated among the Asante by the early nineteenth century. Several hundred symbols have been recorded, and each relates to a different concept or proverb. Many are drawn from popular sayings and folklore. The characters feature heavily in decorative embellishment and are traditionally also printed onto textiles using stamps made from dried calabash.