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In considering the weights and numeric representation, we will consider here only those weights with graphic signs which correspond with calculation and mathematics.

Concerning the signs and marks, the anthropologist François H. Abel has written: “A. Amélékia, a well known man named Diénélou confirmed for me that the Ancients knew how to read from the weights... In the village of Lomo-north, in the region of Toumodi, the village chief knew that the signs on the weights had meaning.”

An observer wrote : “Each weight is the product of two signs written on it... Reading it is sometimes simple, but often difficult. This is because some Black Africans had a different concept for numeric figuration and for the representation of the product of two numbers. [Also] zero did not exist...”. In the system, figures and numbers are represented by vertical and horizontal lines, such as marks and arrows similar to those still seen in charcoal in the houses of African villages. Commenting in 1605 on the Akan system of accounting and calculating, the Dutch explorer and historian Pieter de Marées made this remark: “The Negroes have weights of copper and tin which they have cast themselves, and, although they do not divide in the same way we do, it comes out the same, and the accounting is always correct.”