Evidence of Philistine metallurgy!

Last week, I mentioned that we had found in Alex and Cynthia’s area (in the western part of Area A) fragments of a vessel that looked like a crucible, in which there was a thick residue of a slag like material. I had mentioned that if this is in fact a crucible related to metal production, this would be the first clear evidence from Iron Age Philistia of metal production.
Today, we got the initial result of the analysis of this slag, and it is definitely a copper-based material! So, we now know that the crucible was in fact used in metal production. Now, we will have to carefully excavate this context and see if we can find additional evidence of metal production. Clearly, this is importance from many perspectives, and I will keep updating as we have more info.

Aren