Beautiful.
The emissaries of the Chinese and Cham empires use finely carved wooden tigers as passports: the tigers fit together perfectly with carvings held by ambassadors or viziers in tributary kingdoms, forming a kind of key/lock system of identifiers that it’s famously difficult to forge. They are also used to pass encrypted messages.
Originally shared by Brandes Stoddard
Grabbed from Twitter, and relevant to the interests of many of my friends.
Tattered Remains of Tartary 