• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.555-566
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• 1987

Fifty ancient Korean coins originated in Yi Dynasty have been determined for 9 elements such as Sn, Fe, As, Ag, Co, Sb, Ir, Ru and Ni by instrumental neutron activation analysis and for 3 elements such as Cu, Pb, and Zn by atomic absorption spectrometry. Bronze coins originated in early days of the dynasty contain as major constituents Cu, Pb and Sn approximately in the ratio 90 : 4 : 3, whereas, those in latter days contain in ratio 7 : 2 : 0. Brass coins which had begun in 17 century contain as major constituents Cu, Zn and Pb approximately in the ratio 7 : 1 : 1. The multivariate data have been analyzed for the relation among elemental contents through the variance-covariance matrix. The data have been further analyzed by a principal component mapping method. As the results training set of 8 class have been chosen, based on the spread of sample points in an eigen vector plot and archaeological data such as age and the office of minting. The training set and test set of samples have finally been analyzed for the assignment to certain classes or outliers through the statistical isolinear multiple component analysis (SIMCA).