Tally stick
Encyclopedia
A tally was an ancient memory aid device to record and document numbers, quantities, or even messages. Tally sticks first appear as notches carved on animal bones, in the Upper Paleolithic
. A notable example is the Ishango Bone
. Historical reference is made by Pliny the Elder
(AD 23–79) about the best wood to use for tallies and Marco Polo
(1254–1324) who mentions the use of the tally in China.
). The single tally stick serves predominantly mnemonic
purposes. Related to the single tally concept are messenger sticks (e.g., Inuit tribes), the knotted cords, khipus or quipus, as used by the Inca. Herodotus
(c. 485–425 BC) reported the use of a knotted cord by Darius I of Persia
(c. 521–486 BC). The rosary
is a remnant of the technique represented in the knotted cord.
(1804) still makes reference to the tally stick in Article 1333. Along the Danube
and in Switzerland
the tally was still used in the 20th century in rural economies.
for the collection of taxes by local sheriffs (tax farmers "farming the shire"). The split tally of the Exchequer was in continuous use until 1826. In 1834, the tallies themselves were ordered to be burned in a stove in the Houses of Parliament
, but the fire went out of control, setting the building afire
.
The system of tally marks of the Exchequer is described in The Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer
(see external links below) as follows:
Royal tallies (debt of the Crown) also played an infamous role in the formation of the Bank of England
at the end of the 17th century when these royal tallies, trading at a hefty discount of up to 60 percent, were engrafted into the Bank's capital stock.
Tally sticks feature in the design of the entrance gates to The National Archives at Kew
.
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
. A notable example is the Ishango Bone
Ishango bone
The Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving...
. Historical reference is made by Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
(AD 23–79) about the best wood to use for tallies and Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
(1254–1324) who mentions the use of the tally in China.
Kinds of tallies
Principally there are two different kinds of tally sticks, the single and the split tally.Single tally
The single tally stick was an elongated piece of bone, ivory, wood, or stone which is marked with a system of notches (see: Tally marksTally marks
Tally marks, or hash marks, are a unary numeral system. They are a form of numeral used for counting. They allow updating written intermediate results without erasing or discarding anything written down...
). The single tally stick serves predominantly mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
purposes. Related to the single tally concept are messenger sticks (e.g., Inuit tribes), the knotted cords, khipus or quipus, as used by the Inca. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(c. 485–425 BC) reported the use of a knotted cord by Darius I of Persia
Darius I of Persia
Darius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...
(c. 521–486 BC). The rosary
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
is a remnant of the technique represented in the knotted cord.
Paleolithic tally sticks
- the Ishango boneIshango boneThe Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving...
is a bone toolBone toolBone tools have been documented from the advent of Homo sapiens and are also known from Homo neanderthalensis contexts or even earlier. Bone is a ubiquitous material in hunter-gatherer societies even when other tool materials were not scarce or unavailable...
, dated to the Upper PaleolithicUpper PaleolithicThe Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
era, about 18,000 to 20,000 BC. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, It has a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool. - The Lebombo bone is a a baboonBaboonBaboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...
's fibula with 29 distinct notches, discovered within the Border CaveBorder CaveBorder Cave is a rock shelter on the western scarp of the Lebombo Mountains in KwaZulu-Natal near the border between South Africa and Swaziland. Border Cave has a remarkably continuous stratigraphic record of occupation spanning about 200 ka. Anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeletons together with...
in the Lebombo MountainsLebombo MountainsThe Lebombo Mountains, also called Lubombo Mountains, are an 800km long, narrow range of mountains in Southern Africa stretching from Hluhluwe in KwaZulu-Natal in the south to Punda Maria in the Limpopo Province in South Africa in the north. Part of the mountains are found in South Africa,...
of SwazilandSwazilandSwaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...
. The number of notches suggests that the bone was used to mark the days of a lunar or menstrual calendar. It has been dated to about 35,000 years ago in the excavation report of 1973. - The so-called Wolf bone is a prehistoric artefact discovered in 1937 in CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
during excavations at VestoniceDolní Vestonice (archaeology)Dolní Věstonice refers to an archaeological site near village Dolní Věstonice in the Czech Republic. The site is unique in that it has been a particularly abundant source of prehistoric artifacts dating from the Gravettian period, which spanned roughly 27,000 to 20,000 B.C...
, MoraviaMoraviaMoravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
, led by Karl AbsolonKarel AbsolonKarel Absolon was a Czech archaeologist, geographer, paleontologist, and speleologist. He was born in Boskovice.Absolon was the grandchild of paleontologist Jindřich Wankel...
. Dated to the AurignacianAurignacianThe Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It lasted broadly within the period from ca. 45,000 to 35,000 years ago in terms of conventional radiocarbon dating, or between ca. 47,000 and 41,000 years ago in terms of the most...
, approximately 30,000 years ago, the bone is marked with 55 tally marks. The head of an ivory Venus figurine was excavated close to the bone.
Split tally
The split tally was a technique which became common in medieval Europe, which was constantly short of money (coins) and predominantly illiterate, in order to record bilateral exchange and debts. A stick (squared Hazelwood sticks were most common) was marked with a system of notches and then split lengthwise. This way the two halves both record the same notches and each party to the transaction received one half of the marked stick as proof. Later this technique was refined in various ways and became virtually tamper proof. One of the refinements was to make the two halves of the stick of different lengths. The longer part was called stock and was given to the party which had advanced money (or other items) to the receiver. The shorter portion of the stick was called foil and was given to the party which had received the funds or goods. Using this technique each of the parties had an identifiable record of the transaction. The natural irregularities in the surfaces of the tallies where they were split would mean that only the original two halves would fit back together perfectly, and so would verify that they were matching halves of the same transaction. If one party tried to unilaterally change the value of his half of the tally stick by adding more notches, those notches would not be on the other tally stick and would be revealed as an attempted forgery. The split tally was accepted as legal proof in medieval courts and the Napoleonic CodeNapoleonic code
The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
(1804) still makes reference to the tally stick in Article 1333. Along the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
and in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
the tally was still used in the 20th century in rural economies.
Split tally in England
The most prominent and best recorded use of the split tally was in medieval England as a tool of the ExchequerExchequer
The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...
for the collection of taxes by local sheriffs (tax farmers "farming the shire"). The split tally of the Exchequer was in continuous use until 1826. In 1834, the tallies themselves were ordered to be burned in a stove in the Houses of Parliament
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
, but the fire went out of control, setting the building afire
Burning of Parliament
Burning of Parliament is the popular name for the fire which destroyed the Palace of Westminster, the home of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, on 16 October 1834...
.
The system of tally marks of the Exchequer is described in The Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer
Dialogue concerning the Exchequer
The Dialogus de Scaccario, or Dialogue concerning the Exchequer, is a mediaeval treatise on the practice of the English Exchequer written in the late 12th century by Richard FitzNeal...
(see external links below) as follows:
Royal tallies (debt of the Crown) also played an infamous role in the formation of the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
at the end of the 17th century when these royal tallies, trading at a hefty discount of up to 60 percent, were engrafted into the Bank's capital stock.
Tally sticks feature in the design of the entrance gates to The National Archives at Kew
Kew
Kew is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in South West London. Kew is best known for being the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace...
.
