South Korea Zi:sin Series

Here's the next silver medal from South Korea Komsco mint in the Zi:Sin series. It's of a female Scrofa. This series is said to be of twelve guardians in Korean mythology. The first medal is of Chiwoo Cheonwang which I found information on as a great warrior.

One of the reasons I collect is because I enjoy learning about the images on the coins, the history. I'm a little picky so I wanted to know more about this mythology. Two of my grandchildren are half Korean. I found citations to ancient Chinese/Korean texts about 12 guardians of twelve directions. But these 12 are animals, not humans. I even went so far as to go to the local library and look at a couple books on Korean mythology. I found nothing about these guardians being human. In Hindu and Buddhism there are references to 12 human form guardians but I could not find this in Korean mythology specifically. I sent two emails to the Komsco mint and they didn't reply. Oh well. Unless I can find an ancient source for these Korean guardians being human I'll have to assume this is a modern myth. Maybe the Komsco mint created their own myth, turning the 12 animal guardians into human forms to market the coins. I did Google/Bing searches and about the only links to Zi:Sin are to these medals. I could not find anything about this female Scrofa. The word "scrofa" means the pig species. On this medal she looks pretty good to me!