Togo money
Togo money (also called thunder or lightning stones ) is a phenomenon of the West African Neolithic (3000–1200 BC) In the south of Togo and in Benin it is called “sokpe” (so: lightning; kpe: stone). The name is tied to the circumstances of the find. According to tradition, they were found after thunderstorms.
The biconically pierced stones consist of marbled rock, quartzite of white to yellowish-gray color, or sandstone . The quartz often have a crystalline structure and probably come from the atlas . They have a diameter between 3 and 8 centimeters, are up to 3 cm thick and weigh 25 to 300 g.
The stones are more or less well carved, but are not evenly thick and are mostly smoothly ground. The grinding was carried out in rock channels with appropriate calibration. The double-conical perforation is about the size of a pin head and is located approximately in the middle. On the other hand, cylindrical Togo stones, about 1.8 cm high and about 2.6 cm in diameter, are rare.
Nothing is known about its use. Some of them are too heavy to have served as pearls and also show no signs of wear. Its narrow bore does not allow it to be used as a spindle whorl . Numerous hoard finds show that the pieces, like other materials in Europe, were buried in hoards. In the Museum of Accra in Ghana there is a deposit that consists of 384 stones.
Stone beads made from the same rock, pierced using the same technique, appear to be older.
Another form of "lightning stones" are small axes made of green, brown or black soft stone, e.g. T. volcanic origin. Polished smooth, of a less regular shape and about 4–8 cm long, they probably served no practical purpose.
literature
- Emil Hoffmann: Lexicon of the Stone Age . Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-42125-3 , p. 376.
