The shell bone script of character After or Queen is
which is very similar to character Manage on Post 450, just the person is on the left in this character, but on the right in character Manage. It means Queen originally and now if it is in two characters words. Putting the person on the left is to distinguish it from the character Manage which is a male manager, or commander, but the above character is a female commander or queen who has same power as male commander.
The shell bone script of character Queen above shows that China had Matrilineal Society in ancient time, female had big power.
The bronze script of the character is
Similar to shell bone script.
The big seal script of the character is
Similar to older scripts.
The clerical script of the character is
Similar to older scripts.
The song typeface of the character is
后
Same as clerical script.
The pinyin of the character is Hou4.
It has only meant Queen until 1950s.
Let see the character After evolution.
The bronze script of character After
The left is Double Person Radical, means Walk. The right top
is character Noon (Post 417), the bottom is a foot.
A person who walks out after Noon is behind other people who went out in the morning.
The Dictionary of Pictography mistakenly thinks that the top right is character Silk (Post 36),
The dictionary explains that the foot is tied by the silk, walk very slowly.
I don't agree at all. Not only the character Silk is obviously not same as the top right part of the character After/Behind, in addition, the "walk very slowly" is not necessarily behind, or After meaning too.
The big seal script of the character is
Similar to bronze script.
The small seal script of the character is
Similar to big seal script, just more curved.
The clerical script of the character is
Similar to older scripts, but strokes are more straight.
The song typeface of the character is
後
Same as the clerical script.
The pinyin of the character is Hou4, same as the character 后（Queen）above.
Why did I talk about the two characters which original meanings are totally different together? Because the 後 is merged with 后，and eliminated during Chinese simplification in 1950s. Right now, there is no 後 in simplified Chinese, its meaning "After/Behind" is undertaken by 后, which had never had the meaning before, and its original meaning "Queen" has nothing to do with "After or Behind". The only similarity of the two is they pronounce the same!
It is of the worst Chinese simplifications.
So as you read this post, you should know that the 后 is NOT a simplified character of 後. 后 has shell bone script, but 後 doesn't, which means that 后 may be older than 後, or at least same old (The fact that shell bone script of 後 is not found doesn't mean it didn't exist, may be lost, or may be not found yet).
Anyway, 后 is very old character, not simplified from 後.
Similar to older scripts except there is a short vertical line on the top middle, which I think is nothing to do with the pictography, but just for distinguishing it from the character Sun - 日. It would be the same as character Sun if it had no this vertical short line.
The curve line becomes straight lines, and the top middle vertical line becomes left-falling stroke, which is to distinguish it from the character Sun - 日.
