Tallies & Tokens

On a cliff terrace overlooking a misty river and a walled town with banners, two bronze tiger tallies lie one joined and one split, the split halves facing each other at their notched joints, before a long bronze plaque with coiling patterns, two rectangular tokens with lifting loops and four slender badges in a row, their marks blurred, with cord-bound bundles of wooden slats on a chest behind. Tiger tallies and tokens evoke the strict authority of credentials for troops and passage.