The raison d"être of the Iron Age sites in the region of Faynan is the production of copper metal from the local copper ore deposits. These sites have been the subject of a systematic investigation conducted over the last five years by the University of California, San Diego and the Department of Antiquity, Amman. During two field seasons (2002 and 2006), large scale excavations took place at the site of Khirbat en-Nahas (KEN) ("ruins of the copper" in Arabic) and at the nearby site of Khirbat al-Jariya (KAJ). The former is the largest Iron Age copper smelting site in the southern Levant and a key site for understanding the region of Edom in the 11th - 9th centuries BCE. The excavations revealed ample archaeometallurgical remains, providing new insights about technology and society of this period in Faynan. The extent of the excavations at KEN and KAJ and the magnitude of the archaeometallurgical finds exceed the scale of previous investigations of Iron Age copper production sites in the southern Levant, thus making the current study a primary source for reconstructing the ancient technology and its associated social organization. This paper presents preliminary results of research concerned with the connection between technology and society in ancient Edom. The material exposed in KEN and KAJ reveals the use of complex copper production technology in the 10th century BCE (and probably even earlier), a major rearrangement of the mode of production in the early 9th century BCE and a second stage of intensive copper production throughout the 9th century BCE. Smaller scale metallurgical activities, probably for re-melting slag for further extraction of copper, took place in the late Iron Age at only a few locales in the Faynan district. The high intensity of the copper production already in its commencement, together with other characteristics of the archaeological remains, suggests a well organized industry related to a complex society.