Records

In the Records of the Grand Historian he was listed by Sima Qian as the sixteenth Shang king, succeeding his uncle Wo Jia (沃甲). He was enthroned in the year of Dingwei (丁未) with Bi (庇) as his capital. He ruled for about 32 years before his death. He was given the posthumous name Zu Ding and was succeeded by his cousin Nan Geng (南庚).

Oracle script inscriptions on oracle bones unearthed at Yinxu alternatively record that he was the fifteenth Shang king.

Attempts at chronological dating

The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project, a broad Chinese academic enquiry, published results in 2000 placing Zu Ding as a contemporary of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten — the latter's reign beginning later than Zu Ding's, but both terminating in the mid-1330s BCE.

在位年數

現今流傳文獻記載的祖丁在位年數有2種說法：

• 在位9年，《今本竹書紀年》。

• 在位32年，《太平御覽》卷83引《史記》，《冊府元龜》、《皇極經世》、《資治通鑑外紀》、《資治通鑑前編》、《通志》、《文獻通考》均同。

家庭

妻

• 妣辛，甲骨文作「祖丁配妣辛」

• 妣癸，甲骨文作「祖丁配妣癸」

子

• 陽甲、盤庚、小辛、小乙