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Divined on Ding: Our lord commanding, (on) day Geng, to make offerings to the Mothers,251 will call to search for skulls (from amongst) the lord of Suo’s men.252 Our lord said, “It will not be by day Wu, (but) it will likely be by day Ren (that) men (are found).” 1 250 is likely a graphic variant of , which on 178 occurs in combination with and before lang 琅 “beads”; on 490.2 a graph written occurs in combination with and before bi 璧 “jade circlet”. I read all three graphs as writing the same word. The syntax here seems to be missing a verb after the adverb/modal particle qi. The element in Western Zhou script is used as the sound element to write hou 厚 “thick”. Reading 厚 makes sense as an adjective on 178 and 490, “thick jade”, and a rule of coherency recommends to read it the same way here. 251 ZSKY 2003 reads 庚 as a personal name, and as the object of ling 令 “to command”: “com- mand Geng, calling (him)…” This is possible, as the name Geng does occur on a delivery receipt (362). However, it seems straightforward that the judgment is concerned with days of the week and the days mentioned there appear to be responding to day Geng in the charge statement; this syntax can be compared with Jiabian 243 (= HJ 20462): 戊申卜: 王令庚追方 “Divined on Wushen: The king commands, on day Geng, to pursue (men from the) Territory”; Qu Wanli’s commentary says that 庚 in this divination refers to day Geng. 252 Perhaps this word is related to the oracle bone graph , which is usually explained as a variant of yin 尹 “commander, lord” (Jao Tsung-I 1959: 307). Oracle bone inscriptions record a group of people called “Many 多 ”, and Jao Tsung-I interprets it as another way of writing “Many Yin 多尹”; Takashima (2010: II.241) says it is an official title. Wu Ding’s divination accounts record a person called Elder 伯 ; see Sun Yabing and Lin Huan 2010: 438-49. The use of skulls/heads ancestor worship (for instance HJ 28092: 用危方甶于妣庚，王賓 “using skulls of the Wei territory to Ancestress Geng, the king will host”) is almost certainly associated with beheading ceremonies (see Yibian 5395). HYZ 128 | 171