The archaeological survey and excavation of walls and passes of the Hailong Tun site in Zunyi City, Guizhou

In 2013 and 2014, Guizhou Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other institutions conducted comprehensive survey, mapping and trial excavation to the walls and passes of the Hailong Tun Site. These archaeological activities identified the walls and passes of two phases belonging to the Song and Ming Dynasties respectively and generally made clear the full layout and evolution of the relevant remains through these periods. The extant Bronze Pillar Pass, Iron Pillar Pass, Flying Dragon Pass, Flying Tiger Pass, Chaoqian Pass, Flying Phoenix Pass, Wan’an Pass, West Pass and Rear Pass and the walls built of marlstone are the remains of the Wanli Era of the Ming Dynasty and the north and south walls and the “Earthen wall” on the top of the tun (castle) and the gates associated with them are the remains of the Southern Song Dynasty. These discoveries provided important references for the chronology and periodization of the relevant remains, and also enriched the understandings to the city sites of the Song through the Ming Dynasties in the nearby areas.

Jeremiah as yhwh’s Stronghold (Jer 1:18)

In the book of Jeremiah, the prophet proclaims that Jerusalem will be destroyed by a foreign nation. According to the call narrative, however, Jeremiah himself is transformed into “a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall” (Jer 1:18). While these architectural metaphors have often been explained with regard to Egyptian royal ideology, the article further explores their meaning and function within their literary context. Comparing characterizations of both the prophet and personified Jerusalem, the essay argues that Jer 1:18 offers a late comment to the book: Jeremiah functions as a stand-in for yhwh’s favorite city. A text-critical investigation of Jer 1:18 demonstrates—in contrast to former studies—that the mt pluses deliberately elaborate the prophet’s role by rendering him a substitute for the temple.

MD Simulations of Compression of Nanoscale Iron Pillars

ABSTRACTIt is now possible to create perfect crystal nanowires of many metals. The deformation of such objects requires a good understanding of the processes involved in plasticity at the nanoscale. Isotropic compression of such nanometre scale micropillars is a good model system to understand the plasticity. Here we investigate these phenomena using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of nanometre scale single crystal BCC iron pillars in compression.We find that pillars with large length to width ratio may buckle under high strain rates. The type of buckling behaviour depends sensitively on the boundary conditions used: periodic boundary conditions allow for rotation at top and bottom of the pillar, and result in an S shaped buckle, by contrast fixed boundaries enforce a C shape. Pillars with a length to width ratio closer to that used in experimental micropillar compression studies show deformation behaviour dominated by slip, in agreement with the experiments. For micropillars oriented along <100>, slip occurs on <110> planes and localized slip bands are formed. Pillars of this size experience higher stresses than bulk materials before yielding takes place. One might expect that this may be in part due to the lack of nucleation sites needed to induce slip. However, further simulations with possible dislocation sources: a shorter iron pillar containing a spherical grain boundary, and a similar pillar containing jagged edges did not show a decreased yield strength.