Torque

Heavy castings like this one were used as currency in West Africa prior to the introduction of coinage. Also worn by women in certain ritual dances, torques are considered "stored wealth" because they are composed of the metal from numerous manillas (open bracelets that served as another form of pre-coinage currency). Individuals took their amassed manillas to blacksmiths to be melted down and recast into the much larger torques. Manillas, which were introduced by foreign merchants, circulated in West Africa from the fifteenth to the early twentieth century. Royal brasscasters in the Benin kingdom in present-day Nigeria melted down manilas obtained from the Portuguese and recast them as plaques (for example, see fig. 18, p. 44).(23)

The ideal form is said to be a near perfect circle with the two pointed finials meeting, as displayed in the Dallas torque.

The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art, cat. 103, pp. 278-279.

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NOTES:

23. National Museum of African Art. “The Artistry of African Currency.” Exh. broch. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2000. p. 8.

Phillips, Tom, ed. Africa: The Art of a Continent. London: Royal Academy of Arts; Munich: Prestel, 1995. p. 428.

Eyo, Ekpo. Nigeria and the Evolution of Money. Lagos, Nigeria: Central Bank of Nigeria, in association with the Federal Department of Antiquities, 1979. pp. 61-63.