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丁□子亦隹(唯)衍(侃)于叜 [气(乞)]丁 (王婦)
(金)子貞其又(有) (艱) 一
On Ding...our lord, also, will be happy about builders243 [requested]244 (from) His Highness’ Majestic Lady.245
Jin, our lord,246 tested: Will likely have affliction. 1 242 This graph resembles later spellings of shang 上 “above”. A word with a similar graphic form occurs on a Zhou period dagger-axe (ge 戈): “邯鄲 ” (JC 10996). Here it is most likely to be interpreted as a delivery receipt. It is the name of the person or place that sent the shell in. 243 Sōran 4174 lists various readings put forth by scholars over the past hundred years: kou 寇, zai 宰, sou 叟(搜) and pu 僕. David Keightley (2012: 64-65) suggests 僕 and translates it as “servant, follower, groom”. He says that a group of men called by this name formed a branch of the military. I follow the interpretations of Wang Entian and Shi Bing (cited in GuLin bubian, 498-500) that this word refers to a type of worker, and more specifically that they are associat- ed with construction work; see 286 and commentary. : Both the ZSKY 2003 transcription and Yao Xuan’s transcription have a symbol here indicating one missing graph. Nearly all of the graph’s form remains in both the rubbing and photograph, and it seems rather straightforward to read it qi 气(乞) “request”. Delivery receipts write qi 气as (444) and 245 Another interpretation is to read 丁王婦 separately as “His Highness (and) the Majestic Lady”. 246 Another interpretation is to read 金子 as a reverse writing of 子金 “lord Jin”. 168 | HYZ 124 HYZ 123 + Jiyi 561247