天干是中国古代的一种文字计序符号。天干最晚在夏朝已经开始,明显的证据是夏朝后期有帝王叫做孔甲、胤甲。
Heavenly stems are a set of characters that were used to indicate order in ancient China. Heavenly stems were already in use during the Xia Dynasty at the latest, where the first heavenly stem 甲 was named after the emperor Kong Jia (孔甲) in the late Xia.