The list of ten Heavenly Stems (天干; pinyin: tiāngān) was an enumeration of discrete entities, as in years and dates often employed in Chinese astrology. It has been in use in China since the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC).
The phonetic characters are:
Heavenly Stems are associated with Yin Yang and the Five Elements. They are combined with the twelve Earthly Branches to form the 60-year Stem-Branch (干支) cycle in the Chinese calendar.
The Stems are still commonly used nowadays in China in counting systems similar to the way the alphabet is used in English, namely,
The kings of the Shang Dynasty have characters of the Stems in their given names.
Chinese numerals Chinese calendar
