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Heavenly Stems

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The ten Heavenly Stems or Celestial Stems (Chinese: 天干; pinyin: tiāngān) are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, c. 1250 BC, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family members, who were offered sacrifices on the corresponding day of the Shang week. The Heavenly Stems were used in combination with the Earthly Branches, a similar cycle of twelve days, to produce a compound cycle of sixty days. Subsequently, the Heavenly Stems lost their original function as names for days of the week and dead kin, and acquired many other uses, the most prominent and long lasting of which was their use together with the Earthly Branches as a 60-year calendrical cycle. The system is used throughout East Asia.

Heavenly Stems - Wikipedia Jump to content From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia System of ten ordinals native to China ᠴᡳᡴᡨᡝᠨ"},"mnc_v":{"wt":"abkai cikten"}},"i":0}}]}'> Heavenly Stems Chinese name Chinese 天干 Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin tiāngān Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization tīn gōn Jyutping tin1 gon1 Southern Min Hokkien POJ thian-kan Vietnamese name Vietnamese alphabet thiên can Chữ Hán 天干 Korean name Hangul 천간 Hanja 天干 Transcriptions Revised Romanization cheongan Japanese name Kanji 十干 Hiragana じっかん Transcriptions Romanization jikkan Manchu name Manchu script ᠠᠪᡴᠠᡳ ᠴᡳᡴ

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