THE DATING OF ANCIENT CHINESE CELADON BY INAA AND PATTERN RECOGNITION METHODS*

In 2005, sherds of a special type of ancient Longquan celadon ware were excavated at Maojiawan, in the city of Beijing, China. Although archaeologists agree that these sherds were fired in the period between the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, their specific date is unclear. In order to solve this problem, five other groups of ancient Longquan celadon sherds of known date were selected as reference samples. The elemental body composition of all the sherds was determined by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). Using the same principles as in provenance research, pattern recognition methods were used to build classification functions to specify the date of the unknown sherds. After analysing the experimental data by discriminant analysis, three classification functions were built. All the unknown sherds were classified as Ming Dynasty. This prediction is well in accordance with the fact that these sherds are similar to other Longquan Ming celadon, and so they should be fired in the same dynasty. This also verified the judgement of the Beijing Institute of Cultural Relics.