Celestial Stem
The ten Celestial or Heavenly Stems (Chinese: 天干; pinyin: tiāngān) are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, ca. 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.
Read more about Celestial Stem: Table, Origin, Current Usage
Famous quotes containing the words celestial and/or stem:
“Adam inquires concerning celestial motions, is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge.”
—John Milton (1608–1614)
“Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed,
With no suspicion in stem end or blossom end
Of vitriol or arsenate of lead,
And so not good for anything but cider.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)