Large Tap Slag

3D Model

This 3D model depicts a large tap slag excavated from the Area M slag mound at Khirbat en-Nahas, an Iron Age copper smelting site in Faynan, Jordan. Slag is the waste by-product from producing metal, in this case, raw copper. In antiquity, it was often piled on the perimeters of smelting sites. These large “plates” of slag are associated with the advanced technologies of the 10th-9th centuries BCE in Faynan. Slags like these were “tapped” from the furnace while still in a liquid from, resulting in the flowing texture. Slag provides a key record of the scale and intensity of copper production during the Iron Age and It continues to be the focus of archaeological analysis.

Photography and model by Anthony Tamberino.

Further Reading: Ben-Yosef E, et al. (2019) Ancient technology and punctuated change: Detecting the emergence of the Edomite Kingdom in the Southern Levant. PLoS ONE 14(9): e0221967.