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Ding (丁) is a pictograph of a nail(head) (ding 釘). 134 The earliest graphic forms, like (oracle bone (Jiabian 2329)) and (oracle bone (Yibian 9083)), depict a top profile, while later forms, like (Warring States brush and ink (Baoshan, strip 4)) and (Warring States seal from the state of Yan 燕), evolved to depict a side pro- file. Graphic semblance and phonetic congruity led to it being used to represent the “forehead” (ding 定(>顁)) and “crown/top of the head” (ding 頂/dian 顛), since a top profile of the nailhead resembled the shape of a person’s head and a side profile of the nail resembled the shape of a person’s head and neck.135 Ding 丁 is phono-semantic in tian 天 “crown of the head”, which in Shang-West- ern Zhou script was written (oracle bone (Heji 17985)) and (Early Western Zhou bronze (Tianwang gui 天亡簋)),136 and both words are etymologically related to other words that mean forehead/crown of the head, and by extension, the top. Tian 天in its primary sense first occurs in illness divinations from the Shi diviner group 師組 (in the so-called large or “fat” script), who were the earliest organization of Shang oracle bone divination specialists at Anyang.137 In the following example (Figure 11), king Wu Ding himself made a divination about illness to the crown of his head, [Divined] on Gengyin, His Majesty: The crown of my head will not be sickened.138 Fig. 11: Heji 20975 134 Tang Lan 1981. 135 Ye Yusen 1934. For ding 定/顁, see the Shijing (Book of Odes) poem “Feet of the Unicorn” (Lin zhi zhi 麟之趾; Mao #11): 麟之定，振振公姓。“The forehead of the lin! You majestic kins- men of the prince!” (Karlgren 1950: 7). 136 Peter Boodberg (1937): “The dot on top of 大in the old graphs for 天...is, in our belief, ‘pho- netic-etymonic’ and stands for the archaic word now represented by dian 顛 ‘forehead,’ ‘top,’ the –ng variant of which is reflected in ding 頂 ‘top or crown of the head’< tieng 丁.” 137 Wang Yunzhi 2012: 140-147. 138 Yu Xingwu [1979] 2009: 439-441. Ding 丁 | 59 Perhaps the most cited instance of tian meaning “forehead” in Classical Chinese occurs in the line statements of hexagram Kui 睽 “Cross-eyed” in the Yijing, Six in the Third: Its man with a (branded) forehead and a clipped nose. Ding (丁) as representing the crown of the head also occurs in an early spelling of the word mian 娩 “give birth”, which in Shang script was written in two ways: and . The second form adds 丁 and depicts the crown of the child’s head. 139 Another example is 子 “child”, written in early script as . The shape of the child’s head in the writing of zi and ding in the writing of mian match. As an appellation for a living person, the etymological relationship between ding 丁(頂), ding 顁, dian 顛, and tian 天 suggests it meant crown of the head, and by extension, Head and top male. Warring States and Han script continued to use both ding 丁 and 釘 to write ding 頂 “crown of the head”,140 and lexical wordbooks from this period like the Erya 爾雅 contain definitions for fish anatomy like “The fish’s pillow, call it ‘ding’” 魚枕謂之丁, which is a evident play on image arche- types. The tiangan designations Ding (day 4/10), Yi 乙 (day 2/10), and Bing 丙 (day 3/10) used to define parts of a fish—the tail, intestines, and head—appear to have derived by matching the shape of the graph to the part of the fish it resembled.141 The bone of a fish’s head was called “ding” because the same sound also meant top of the head, and because the graph’s “image” resembled it. In translation, I use “His Highness” when 丁 referred to the Shang king, and “Head” or “Chief” when it referred to leaders of other lineages or groups of men. The advantage of this new reading is that it can be applied to the top male of a group irre- spective of pedigree. Reading ding 丁 as di 帝and explaining it as the eldest son of the direct line of the royal lineage (嫡) implies that it was restricted for use by anyone 139 Zhang Yachu 2001: 11. The first form is composed of two hands, depicting an opening mo- tion, plus pen/womb; the second form adds 丁 inside of the womb. Mian 娩 in Warring States script was written (Guodian Ziyi, strip 24), (Guodian, Liude, strip 28), and (Baoshan, strip 175). By this time in the evolution of the script the head of the child evolved into the entire child 子, the “womb” was abbreviated or changed in shape, and the two hands were omitted. 140 For instance, 釘was used to write ding 頂as late as the Western Han; see the Yijing’s hexa- gram text Da guo 大過 “Great Surpassing” from Mawangdui. Wen Yiduo (2016: 495) notes that the graph ding 丁was used to write the word tian 天in the Han period Yijing weft text Qian Kun zao du 乾坤鑿度 (Boring the degrees of Qian and Kun). Wen ingeniously proposed that ding was not a phonetic loan for tian but rather an abbreviated and simplified way of spelling it. 141 The Erya associates a fish’s intestines to Yi and a fish’s tail to Bing. In ancient script Yi 乙 was written and resembles the shape of the intestines, while Bing 丙 was written and re- sembles the shape of the tail. 60 | Part II: People other than the kings. Yet ding 丁also occurred in oracle bone divinations made on behalf of the kings in reference to the Head of other lineages and groups of people. Below are eight instances where 丁 occurs in combination with ren 人 “per- son”, and after a lineage name or the name of a group of people: Huang Yin ding ren 黃尹丁人 Huang ding ren 黃丁人 Yi ding ren 伊丁人 Shan ding ren 單丁人 Meng ding ren 夢丁人 Qi ding ren 祈丁人 Zhi ding ren 彘丁人 Yi ding ren 夷丁人 (Heji 3096-3099) (Heji 22) (Heji 32803rv, Minghou 明後B2442) (Heji 137) (Heji 32212, Yingcang 2428) (Heji 13720) (Yibian 8893) (Heji 6476) In each of these instances the word preceding 丁is the name of a lineage or a col- lective term for a territorial group. The names Huang Yin/Huang/Yi referred to a single lineage.142 Reading 丁as “Head” or the top male of X-lineage/X-coalition is suitable in every instance. 人 “person” either meant a person or people of the Head of X-lineage, or it was a measure word for 丁. (Heji 6476 writes it as a ligature Perhaps the most informative example of 丁 with this meaning occurs on Heji 3096 (Figure 12): (殙)，在丁家又(有)子。Heji 3096 [Bin III] Divined on Bingwu, tested: Yu, a female of the Huang-Yin chief, is not going to die suddenly; at the Head’s house there will be a child. Fig. 12: Heji 3096 The word 丁 in this divination undoubtedly had the same meaning as it does in iso- lation and in reference to a living person in the Huayuanzhuang East divination rec- ords. The reason Ding occurs in isolation in the Huayuanzhuang East divinations is because the patron and Ding were family; a lineage name in front of it would have 142 Qiu Xigui [1983] 2012: 1.196. This lineage name originated with the Shang minister Huang Yi, also called Yi Yin. Ding 丁 | 61 been redundant and unnecessary. Hypothetically speaking, when other lineages re- ferred to Wu Ding they probably referred to him as wang “king” if they were under his mandate, but conceivably could also have called him “Royal lineage name/name of territory (Shang 商) + Ding 丁”. As with the appellation Zi 子, 丁 was clearly not re- stricted for use amongst the Shang royal family. Oracle bone inscriptions mention a group of the Huang lineage called “黃多子” (Huang’s Many Sons > Family Heads (Heji 3255)), and this corresponds with “黃丁” (Huang’s “Head”) and “黃尹丁” (Huang-Yin’s “Head”) in the list above.143 The lineage structure of Huang with a top male as “Head” and many adult children as family heads 子is precisely the situation that we see in the Huayuanzhuang East divination records—the main subject in the divinations was a family head and one of Shang’s “Many Children” 多子, and “Ding” 丁was the designation for the head male. The phrase “Ding’s house” 丁家 in Figure 12 was apparently an abbreviation of “Huang-Yin Head’s house” 黃尹丁家, and it is parallel with the phrase “ ancestral temple” mentioned earlier. In addition, the noun phrases “Ding’s school” 丁序 (HYZ