Ghana-Net.com · Ashanti Region · UNESCO World Heritage
Ten shrine houses of mud, timber and thatch in villages around Kumasi — all that survives of the architecture of one of the richest states in Africa. UNESCO-listed since 1980. One has been restored and is open. The other nine are not, most are closed, some still have a resident priest — and the official record cannot agree on what they are called or exactly where they are.
Not houses, and not quite temples. An Abosomfie is a shrine house — the spiritual home of an Obosom, one of the lesser deities of the Asante pantheon who mediate between people and Nyame, the supreme god.
The plan is the same everywhere and it is worth knowing before you stand in one, because you will otherwise walk through it without seeing what it is.
Four structures enclose a central courtyard — the gyase. Three open onto it with raised floors. The fourth is closed, and holds the shrine.
One is for the drummers. One is for the singers. The third is a cooking area, where ceremonial meals were prepared for the gods to share.
The shrine itself, shut off by decorated walls or intricate open-work screens — pierced panels that let air and sound through but not sight. The most refined work in the building is always here.
Three-quarters of a sacred building given over to drumming, singing and cooking. Asante religious practice was not silent contemplation. It was noise, rhythm and a shared meal, and the architecture was specified for it.
A framework of timber and bamboo, filled with clay and mud plaster, roofed with sheaves of leaves. Nothing in the original construction is permanent. These buildings were designed to be maintained continuously by village master craftsmen — repaired, replastered, rethatched, generation after generation. The maintenance was the building.
The walls carry relief decoration in interlacing geometric bands, animal motifs, and Adinkra symbols — each carrying a proverb. The design is not ornament applied to a wall. It is writing.
The Asante Kingdom reached its height in the eighteenth century as one of the wealthiest and most powerful states on the continent. It built on a scale to match — palaces, mausolea, shrine houses, and a capital that European visitors described with astonishment.
Almost none of it exists.
The British burned Kumasi in 1874 and again after the occupation of 1896. What the fires left, the raids of the nineteenth century and the occupation from 1806 to 1901 finished.
Ten shrine houses survived, in villages far enough from the capital to be missed — which is the only reason there is anything on this page at all. They are, in UNESCO's own phrasing, the last remaining testimony of the great Asante civilisation.
The second reason so few remain is in the material. Earth, wood and straw disintegrate quickly in this climate and require constant work. When a shrine lost its community, or its craftsmen, or its priest, it did not need to be destroyed. It simply went back into the ground.
Village names first as UNESCO lists them, with the shrine names and distances as recorded by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. Where the two disagree, we give both.
Also called the Tano Yaw Shrine. About 20.8 km along the Kumasi–Accra road. The only one reconstructed using traditional designs and methods, and the only one officially open to the public, operating as a small museum. Reachable by public transport from Kumasi and the one the tourist board actually promotes. Entry has historically been a few cedis.
Also called the Kwasi Kuma Shrine. Recorded on the ground as Aduko Jachie — UNESCO's own listing appears to have the name wrong. No signage, no marker, nothing to distinguish the village. The shrine sits in its northern part and looks like the houses around it from outside; the courtyard preserves Asante ornament, much of it in poor condition. Visitors have reported informal entry fees several times higher than Besease's official one.
About 12.8 km from Kumasi on the Antoa road. Listed by UNESCO as Abirim, recorded by GMMB as Abirem.
About 12.6 km north-east of Kumasi, on the former Odumakoma–Tempong road that once led north towards the savannah and the trans-Saharan trade.
Listed by UNESCO as Edwenase, recorded by GMMB as Adwinase. Located off the Ejisu–Onwi road.
At Kentinkrono, about 20.8 km along the Kumasi–Ejisu road.
GMMB records a shrine of this name at Bogwiase, at the foot of the rocky Mampong scarp, about 10 km from Effiduase in the Sekyere West District. Whether this is UNESCO's Bodwease under another spelling, or a different place entirely, is not clear from the published record.
Named in the UNESCO inscription. No shrine name, dedication or distance is given in the published GMMB descriptions we can find.
Named in the UNESCO inscription. Not described in detail in the published official material.
Named in the UNESCO inscription. Not described in detail in the published official material.
Some are still working shrines. Several continue to have a religious function and some have a resident priest. That is not a heritage detail — it is the reason most are not open. A shrine with an active priest is not a monument with an access problem; it is a place of worship that has chosen its own terms.
These buildings survived the British. What happened next is harder to write about, because it was done by people trying to help.
For centuries the shrines were maintained by village-based master craftsmen, using the same earth, timber and thatch they were built from. That system had kept them standing since the eighteenth century.
In the mid-twentieth century, as government oversight of heritage replaced local stewardship, the traditional materials were substituted with cheaper and more durable ones — corrugated metal roofing and cement plaster.
Cement does not breathe. Earth walls do. Sealing a mud building in cement traps moisture inside it, and the wall rots behind a surface that looks solid.
It was not vandalism. It was maintenance, done by an authority with a budget, choosing the material that would need replacing least often. And it broke the thing it was applied to — both physically, and by severing the chain of craftsmen who knew how to do it properly.
When Besease was restored, it had to be reconstructed using traditional designs and building methods, because that was the only way to make it work. Which is the whole argument, demonstrated at cost, on one building out of ten.
This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed for more than forty years. Establishing which buildings are actually in it, and where they are, has taken outside researchers substantial work — because there is no official map.
UNESCO lists Adarko Jachie. Researchers who have travelled there record the village as Aduko Jachie, and note the UNESCO name as an error.
UNESCO says Edwenase. Ghana's own Museums and Monuments Board says Adwinase. Two spellings, two authorities, one shrine.
UNESCO lists Bodwease. GMMB describes the Tano Odomankoma Shrine at Bogwiase, near the Mampong scarp — a considerable distance from the other nine. Same place, or not, the published record does not say.
UNESCO and most sources say ten buildings. Others count thirteen buildings across ten locations. Both figures circulate, and both are cited as official.
Why this matters beyond pedantry. A monument nobody can locate is a monument nobody can protect. Four of the ten have no published description, no shrine name and no distance — they exist on the inscription and effectively nowhere else. If one of them fell down tomorrow, it is not obvious who would notice.
We would very much like to be corrected on any of this. If you know these villages, have visited a shrine that is not Besease, or can supply the shrine names for Asawase, Asenemaso or Patakro, please tell us — and we will credit you.
It is the only one restored, the only one officially open, and the only one where you will see the architecture as it was meant to look. About 20 km east of Kumasi on the Accra road, reachable by public transport, with a modest official entrance fee. Start here — and if you only do one, do this one.
From Besease, three other shrines sit within reach on the same run. They are not officially open, they are not signposted, and you will need to ask in the village. Take a driver or a local guide who can make the introductions.
Away from Besease, expect to be asked for a payment that has no receipt and no fixed amount, and which visitors have reported at several times the official rate. That is the reality of an unmanaged site, not a scam — someone is unlocking a door for you.
Because for several of them it is. Ask before entering. Ask before photographing. Remove shoes where asked. If there is a priest, greet him first and follow his lead. If you are told no, that is the end of it.
Outside Besease, these look like ordinary village houses from the road. The decoration is inside, in the courtyard, and much of it is in poor condition. This is not Elmina. It is a quiet, difficult, largely unmanaged site — and that is precisely what makes it worth the effort.
Besease is at Ejisu — Yaa Asantewaa's own town, and the seat of the queen mother who led the Asante against the British in 1900. Doing the shrine and the town together is the best half-day out of Kumasi that nobody sells.
Check before travelling. Opening arrangements at Ghanaian heritage sites change without notice. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, 2 Barnes Road, Adabraka, Accra: +233 302 221633 or +233 302 221635. Ask about Besease specifically.
No organised tour we know of includes the Asante Traditional Buildings, which tells you something about how a World Heritage Site can be simultaneously listed and ignored. A driver for half a day from Kumasi covers Besease, Ejisu and a couple of the closer shrines comfortably.
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Details last verified . The Asante Traditional Buildings were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980 at the 4th Session under cultural criterion (v), reference 35. UNESCO lists ten locations in the Ashanti Region: Abirim, Asawase, Asenemaso, Bodwease, Ejisu Besease, Adarko Jachie, Edwenase, Kentinkrono, Patakro and Saaman; some sources count thirteen buildings across those ten locations. Shrine names and distances — the Yaw Tano Shrine at Ejisu-Besease, the Akwasi Sima Shrine at Adarkwa Jachie, the Tano Abenamu Subunu Shrine at Abirem, the Tano Kwadwo Shrine at Saaman, the Atuo Kosua Shrine at Adwinase, the Kentinkrono Shrine, and the Tano Odomankoma Shrine at Bogwiase — are as published by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. The description of the Abosomfie plan, with four buildings around a central gyase courtyard and rooms for drummers, singers and ceremonial cooking, follows documentation held in the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. The account of traditional materials being replaced with corrugated metal roofing and cement plaster as government oversight replaced local stewardship, and the statement that only Besease has been restored, are as published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reports of informal entrance fees and the absence of signage away from Besease are from published visitor accounts. Discrepancies between UNESCO and Ghanaian official sources over village names — Adarko/Aduko Jachie, Edwenase/Adwinase, Bodwease/Bogwiase — are reported as found, and we make no determination as to which is correct. Several shrines remain in active religious use with resident priests; access is at the discretion of those communities and is not a matter of opening hours. Conditions change without notice — confirm locally before travelling, and please write to us with corrections. All photography © Remo Kurka. Usage strictly by prior authorisation only.
