Besease Traditional Building

The Besease Traditional Building, also known as the Yaw Tano Shrine or Tano Yaw Shrine, is one of the ten surviving Asante Traditional Buildings and forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage property inscribed in 1980. It is a shrine house built in the traditional Asante earthen manner, using timber, bamboo and mud plaster, and decorated with Akan Adinkra symbols and bas-relief designs.

The typical Asante shrine house takes the form of four rectangular single-room buildings set around an open courtyard, with adjacent inner corners linked by splayed screen walls. Three of the buildings are usually open to the courtyard while the fourth is partially enclosed. The upper walls carry interlacing geometric designs; the lower parts are boldly modelled bas-relief in red clay, polished to a dull shine, with motifs including reptiles, fish, birds and plants that carry proverbial and symbolic meaning.

These buildings served as shrines for deities believed to protect the Asante Kingdom. The Asante Traditional Buildings are described as the last material remains of the great Asante civilisation, which peaked in the 18th century, and some continue to have a religious function today. Visitors should keep in mind that this is a shrine as well as a heritage site.

The building stands at Besease in the Ejisu Municipal District of the Ashanti Region, about 20.8 km from Kumasi on the Kumasi–Accra road. The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board publishes opening hours of 9:00am to 4:30pm for the Asante Traditional Buildings; because these hours are given for the group of buildings rather than for Besease alone, it is worth confirming before travelling.

The Ejisu Besease shrine was spatially documented by the Zamani Project in 2006 in collaboration with the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. UNESCO reports that earth and wattle-and-daub structures of this kind are vulnerable to time, weather and termites, and that conservation management planning is needed — a reminder that what survives here is fragile.