Iron production in the ancient Xianyang city of the Qin state: A perspective on iron smelting slags

The ancient Xianyang city was the capital city of the Qin state and Qin empire during the 4th century BCE to the 3rd century BCE. In the past decades, several archaeological excavations and surveys have carried out in the city site and two ironworks have been discovered. The present paper reports the iron production technology applied in one of the ironworks in the ancient Xianyang city site through metallographic and elemental analyses of collected slags. The analytical results provide evidence that both cast iron smelting and fining process were applied in the ancient Xianyang city.