A Han envoy's tally
More than ten years a prisoner of the Xiongnu — a wife, a son — and the Shiji spends two sentences on the decade, except to say he never let go of the staff. While he held it he was an ambassador and not a captive.
What it was
He left the Han court in 138 BC and was gone thirteen years — about ten of them held by the Xiongnu, the rest spent reaching the Yuezhi and getting home.
A bamboo shaft about eight chi long — a little under two metres — carrying three tiers of yak-tail tassels. The tassels could be untied: a Han official once stripped his and hid them in his robe so as not to be recognised.
The tassels were red. A yellow tier was added on top in 91 BC, to tell the emperor's staff from the crown prince's during the witchcraft affair. Zhang Qian died in 114 BC, so his was red and nothing else.
Why there is no photograph
No Han envoy's staff has ever been excavated. Not one.
The only excavated object that carries the name is a set of Chu bronze tallies from 323 BC, and those are a transit pass — a different thing entirely. Every picture of an envoy's staff, including this one, is reconstructed from figures painted on the walls of Han tombs.
- Sima Qian, Shiji 123 (大宛列傳): 然騫持漢節不失
- Hanshu 61, the same five characters verbatim
- Hou Hanshu, Li Xian commentary quoting the Han guanyi, on its form
- Feng Yan, letter to Tian Yi: 'eight chi of bamboo and a yak's tail'
- Picture: made with AI for The Ember Atlas, an imagining, not a record of how it looked.