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A twelve-character ordinal series.
Also known as: Twelve branches, Terrestrial branches
The Chinese series of twelve characters used to number years, months and double-hours, and as the second element of the sexagenary cycle.
Provides a twelve-place series and the second element of each sexagenary pair.
Contexts: History, Public information
Divides the day into twelve double-hours as well as the year into twelve, so the same twelve characters name a time of day, a direction of the compass and a year; a Chinese date and a Chinese clock face are written in one vocabulary.
Contexts: History, Public information
Underlies the zodiac animals rather than the reverse: the branches are the older series and the animals were mapped onto them, which is why the animal order is fixed and apparently arbitrary.
Contexts: History, Public information
A fixed run of twelve written characters in an unvarying order, each a single glyph, conventionally set around a circle when used for direction or hour.
The animal series mapped onto these branches.
The ten-character series the branches are run against.