Omar Khairat (Arabic: عمر خيرت; A composer, pianist, founder and conductor of "Omar Khairat's Group". Born in Cairo. He was raised in a family of musicians. His uncle is Abou-Bakr Khairat, the great Egyptian composer and architect who established the Cairo Conservatoire and enriched the Arab music with great symphonic pieces. Influenced by this legacy Omar Khairat discovered new musical dimensions in the emotions and memories of the Egyptian and Arab personality. He joined the Cairo Conservatoire in 1959, studied piano with Italian Maestro Vincenzo Carro and followed correspondence courses in music theory and composition with the Trinity College in England. Omar Khairat shaped his musical identity as a professional independent composer achieving new musical visions characterized with deepness and richness. His debut performing in film music was The Night of Arresting Fatma in 1983. According to music experts and critics, Omar Khairat's music bridges contemporary Arab music and Western music reflecting genuine maturity. Moreover, he is considered to be one of the most outstanding composers presenting successful works like The Fortune-teller, The Magic Perfumes (1989), and the Arab Rhapsody (1992). He also composed music for international events like the National Feast of Oman 1993, the Inauguration Ceremony of Bibliotheca Alexandrina 1996, Carthage Festival, Tunisia, Operetta El Sheikh Zaid, Emirates 2000, Panorama El Abour "Symphonic Poem", Musical Impact Cairo 1991, Fine Arts Cycle Spain 2004, October Celebrations 2000, Celebration of the Royal Jordan River Institution 2005, Garash Festival 2003, Three Civilizations Celebration in Spain, Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Egyptian Cinema etc. Omar Khairat understands Arab emotions and music which helps him to attract a large audience from the whole Arab region. He regularly performed at the Cairo Opera House and all the Egyptian and Arab ceremonies during the last fifteen years. His repertoire of cinema includes more than fifty works: The Sixth Day, 1984, Am Ahmed Case, The Execution of a Dead Man, A Divorced Woman, The Servant, Elhanna Neighbors, The Terrorist, 1993, Hell under Water, Take Care of Your Mind, Grandchildren Conflict, Sokoot Hansawar, The Ostrich and the Peacock, 2001, Mafia 2002, Girl's Love, 2003, The Embassy in the Building, 2005, The Deer's Blood, 2006 and Mafish Gheir Keda, 2006. His works in television drama music are Ghawayesh, The Miser and Me, Abla Hekmat's Conscience, Moon Face, The Fox, Knight's Age, Escaping to Prison, Afandina's Daughter, Agent 1001, The Salt of the Earth, The Emperor, Matter of Principle, Law in Islam, In Bad and Good Times, Date with Destiny and others. Omar Khairat also rearranged works of the great composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab like Wahabiat 1 and 2 in addition to songs of Um Kulthoum which achieved great success. Omar Khairat received Arab and international awards like the Oman Award 1993, a Certificate of Merit and the Shield of the 7th Cairo International Song Festival 2001, the Emirate Ministry of Media Award 2004, the Royal Jordan River Institution Award 2005, Certificate of Merit and the Shield of the Alexandria International Song Festival 2006, Certificate of Merit and the Shield of the 30th Cairo International Film Festival 2006. And in 2008 he received the Middle East Music Award (MEMA)

Compositions

Among his many compositions:

TV Drama:

The Society (El Gama3a)

The Bangles

The Miser and Me (El Bakheel wa Ana)

Escape from Prison

Face of the moon

This Man (Hatha Al Ragol)

The Second Meeting (Al Leqa2 Al Thany)

Spring in the Storm

Homes Have Secrets (Lel Beyoot Asrar)

Movies:

Welad El-aam (Cousins)

The Island (El Gezeera)

Taimour and shafeeaa

aasal eswed (Molasses)

Mafia

The 6th Day

Deer’s blood

Escape from the Mental Hospital

The Forbidden Time

The Hostage (Al Raheena)

Love Also Dies (El 7ob Aydan Yamoot)

The Night of Fatima's Arrest (Lelt el Abd 3ala Fatma)

Places in the Heart (Makan fel Qalb)

Search for Diana

Silence, we’re rolling (Sekoot, 7ansawar)

Slumber in Honey (El Nom fel 3asal)

The Terrorist (El Erhaby)

Uncle Ahmed's Case (Adeyet 3am Ahmad)

Operettas:

100 Years of Cinema

Al Amarna Hill

Others:

Arabian Rhapsody (Symphonic Work).

The Sourceress and the Magical Perfumes (Commissioned by Diana Calenti for her dance company).* The Music for The Opening Ceremony of The 11th Pan-Arab Games (performed by the British Symphony Orchestra).

The Music for The Opening Ceremony of The Asian games in Doha (ASIAD 2006) (performed by the British Symphony Orchestra).

The Nile (ballet by the Cairo Opera Ballet).

Awards

He won more than 20 awards for his soundtracks of the following movies: Escape from the Khanka (the Egyptian Society for Cinema 1988), The Search for Tout Ankh Amoun (the Egyptian Radio and TV Union 1997), El Noum Fe El Asal (the Egyptian Society for Cinema 1997), The Ostrich and the Peacock (the Tebessa Festival in Algeria 2001), The Ostrich and the Peacock (Alexandria International Cinema Festival 2001), Sokoot Hansawar (the Golden Knight Award from the Egyptian Radio and TV Union 2001, and the Middle East Oscar for best song), Mafia (the Egyptian Cinema Oscar from the Art of Cinema Association 2003), The Embassy in the Building (the Egyptian Cinema Oscar from the Art of Cinema Association 2005), and Agent 1001 in best soundtrack by public voting 2005.

On the year 2008, Omar Khayrat won the middle east music award (MEMA), and on April 29, 2010 he won the award of composing the best sound track for welad el aam movie at the cairo national film festival.

CD and DVD releases

Am Ahmed.

Arabian Rhapsody.

Bangles.

Egyptian Overture CD, DVD and VCD.

Fatma.

Mrs. Hikmat's Conscience.

Murcia Tres Culturas DVD and VCD.

Panorama.

The Modern Woman.

The Second Meeting.

The Sorceress and The Magical Perfume.

The Vision.

Festival or Tolerance.

See also

List of Egyptian composers

Music of Egypt

References

External links

Omar Khairat official page

Omar Khairat's web page

Clip from "Ahmed's Case"

Clip from "The Cheap and Me

Category:Egyptian composers Category:People from Cairo Category:Egyptian pianists Category:Egyptian classical pianists Category:1949 births Category:Living people

ar:عمر خيرت de:Omar Khairat arz:عمر خيرت

name	Athanasius Kircher
dead	dead
birth date	2 May 1601 or 1602
birth place	Geisa, Abbacy of Fulda
death date	27 November or 28 November 1680
death place	Rome
nationality	German
religion	Roman Catholicism (Jesuit scientist-priest) }}

Athanasius Kircher (1601 or 1602 – 1680) (sometimes erroneously spelled Kirchner) was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "master of a hundred arts".

Kircher was the most famous "decipherer" of hieroglyphs of his day, although most of his assumptions and "translations" in this field have since been disproved as nonsensical. However, he did make an early study of Egyptian hieroglyphs, correctly establishing the link between the ancient Egyptian language and the Coptic language, for which he has been considered the founder of Egyptology. He was also fascinated with Sinology, and wrote an encyclopedia of China, in which he noted the early presence of Nestorian Christians but also attempted to establish more tenuous links with Egypt and Christianity.

Kircher's work with geology included studies of volcanos and fossils. One of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope, he was thus ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and mechanical inventions, and inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock, various automatons and the first megaphone. The invention of the magic lantern is often misattributed to Kircher, although he did conduct a study of the principles involved in his ''Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae''.

A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by the rationalism of René Descartes and others. In the late 20th century, however, the aesthetic qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as "a giant among seventeenth-century scholars", and "one of the last thinkers who could rightfully claim all knowledge as his domain". Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as "the last Renaissance man".

Life

Kircher was born on 2 May in either 1601 or 1602 (he himself did not know) in Geisa, Buchonia, near Fulda, currently Hesse, Germany. From his birthplace he took the epithets ''Bucho, Buchonius'' and ''Fuldensis'' which he someties added to his name. He attended the Jesuit College in Fulda from 1614 to 1618, when he joined the order himself as a seminarian.

The youngest of nine children, Kircher studied volcanoes for his passion of rocks and eruptions. He was taught Hebrew by a rabbi in addition to his studies at school. He studied philosophy and theology at Paderborn, but fled to Cologne in 1622 to escape advancing Protestant forces. On the journey, he narrowly escaped death after falling through the ice crossing the frozen Rhine— one of several occasions on which his life was endangered. Later, travelling to Heiligenstadt, he was caught and nearly hanged by a party of Protestant soldiers.

From 1622 to 1624 Kircher stayed in Koblenz as a teacher. At Heiligenstadt, he taught mathematics, Hebrew and Syriac, and produced a show of fireworks and moving scenery for the visiting Elector Archbishop of Mainz, showing early evidence of his interest in mechanical devices. He joined the priesthood in 1628 and became professor of ethics and mathematics at the University of Würzburg, where he also taught Hebrew and Syriac. From 1628, he also began to show an interest in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Kircher published his first book (the ''Ars Magnesia'', reporting his research on magnetism) in 1631, but the same year he was driven by the continuing Thirty Years' War to the papal University of Avignon in France. In 1633, he was called to Vienna by the emperor to succeed Kepler as Mathematician to the Habsburg court. On the intervention of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the order was rescinded and he was sent instead to Rome to continue with his scholarly work, but he had already set off for Vienna.

On the way, his ship was blown off-course and he arrived in Rome before he knew of the changed decision. He based himself in the city for the rest of his life, and from 1638, he taught mathematics, physics and oriental languages at the Collegio Romano for several years before being released to devote himself to research. He studied malaria and the plague, amassing a collection of antiquities, which he exhibited along with devices of his own creation in the Museum Kircherianum.

In 1661, Kircher discovered the ruins of a church said to have been constructed by Constantine on the site of Saint Eustace's vision of Jesus Christ in a stag's horns. He raised money to pay for the church’s reconstruction as the ''Santuario della Mentorella'', and his heart was buried in the church on his death.

Work

Kircher published a large number of substantial books on a very wide variety of subjects, such as Egyptology, geology, and music theory. His syncretic approach paid no attention to the boundaries between disciplines which are now conventional: his ''Magnes'', for example, was ostensibly a discussion of magnetism, but also explored other forms of attraction such as gravity and love. Perhaps Kircher's best-known work today is his ''Oedipus Aegyptiacus'' (1652–54) a vast study of Egyptology and comparative religion. His books, written in Latin, had a wide circulation in the 17th century, and they contributed to the dissemination of scientific information to a broader circle of readers. But Kircher is not now considered to have made any significant original contributions, although a number of discoveries and inventions (e.g., the magic lantern) have sometimes been mistakenly attributed to him.

Linguistic and cultural studies

Egyptology

The last known example of Egyptian hieroglyphics dates from AD 394, after which all knowledge of hieroglyphics was lost. Until Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion found the key to hieroglyphics in the 19th century, the main authority was the 4th century Greek grammarian Horapollon, whose chief contribution was the misconception that hieroglyphics were "picture writing" and that future translators should look for symbolic meaning in the pictures. The first modern study of hieroglyphics came with Piero Valeriano Bolzani's nonsensical ''Hieroglyphica'' (1566), but Kircher was the most famous of the "decipherers" between ancient and modern times and the most famous Egyptologist of his day. In his ''Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta'' (1643), Kircher called hieroglyphics "this language hitherto unknown in Europe, in which there are as many pictures as letters, as many riddles as sounds, in short as many mazes to be escaped from as mountains to be climbed". While some of his notions are long discredited, portions of his work have been valuable to later scholars, and Kircher helped pioneer Egyptology as a field of serious study.

Kircher's interest in Egyptology began in 1628 when he became intrigued by a collection of hieroglyphs in the library at Speyer. He learned Coptic in 1633 and published the first grammar of that language in 1636, the ''Prodromus coptus sive aegyptiacus''. Kircher then broke with Horapollon's interpretation of the language of the hieroglyphs with his ''Lingua aegyptiaca restituta''. Kircher argued that Coptic preserved the last development of ancient Egyptian. For this Kircher has been considered the true "founder of Egyptology", because his work was conducted "before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone rendered Egyptian hieroglyphics comprehensible to scholars". He also recognised the relationship between the hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts.

Between 1650 and 1654, Kircher published four volumes of "translations" of hieroglyphs in the context of his Coptic studies. However, according to Steven Frimmer, "none of them even remotely fitted the original texts". In ''Oedipus Aegyptiacus'', Kircher argued under the impression of the ''Hieroglyphica'' that ancient Egyptian was the language spoken by Adam and Eve, that Hermes Trismegistus was Moses, and that hieroglyphs were occult symbols which "cannot be translated by words, but expressed only by marks, characters and figures." This led him to translate simple hieroglyphic texts now known to read as ''dd Wsr'' ("Osiris says") as "The treachery of Typhon ends at the throne of Isis; the moisture of nature is guarded by the vigilance of Anubis".

Although his approach to deciphering the texts was based on a fundamental misconception, Kircher did pioneer serious study of hieroglyphs, and the data which he collected were later used by Champollion in his successful efforts to decode the script. Kircher himself was alive to the possibility of the hieroglyphs constituting an alphabet; he included in his proposed system (incorrect) derivations of the Greek alphabet from 21 hieroglyphs. However, according to Joseph MacDonnell, it was "because of Kircher's work that scientists knew what to look for when interpreting the Rosetta stone". Another scholar of ancient Egypt, Erik Iverson, concluded:

Kircher was also actively involved in the erection of obelisks in Roman squares, often adding fantastic "hieroglyphs" of his own design in the blank areas that are now puzzling to modern scholars.

Sinology

Kircher had an early interest in China, telling his superior in 1629 that he wished to become a missionary to the country. In 1667 he published a treatise whose full title was ''China monumentis, qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturae and artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata'', and which is commonly known simply as ''China Illustrata'', i.e. "China Illustrated". It was a work of encyclopedic breadth, combining material of unequal quality, from accurate cartography to mythical elements, such as dragons. The work drew heavily on the reports of Jesuits working in China, in particular Michael Boym and Martino Martini.

''China Illustrata'' emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined: the book noted the early presence of Nestorians (with a Latin translation of the Nestorian Stele of Xi'an provided by Boym and his Chinese collaborator, Andrew Zheng), but also claimed that the Chinese were descended from the sons of Ham, that Confucius was Hermes Trismegistus/Moses and that the Chinese characters were abstracted hieroglyphs.

In Kircher's system, ideograms were inferior to hieroglyphs because they referred to specific ideas rather than to mysterious complexes of ideas, while the signs of the Maya and Aztecs were yet lower pictograms which referred only to objects. Umberto Eco comments that this idea reflected and supported the European attitude to the Chinese and native American civilizations;

"China was presented not as an unknown barbarian to be defeated but as a prodigal son who should return to the home of the common father". (p. 69)

Biblical studies and exegesis

In 1675, he published ''Arca Noë'', the results of his research on the biblical Ark of Noah— following the Counter-Reformation, allegorical interpretation was giving way to the study of the Old Testament as literal truth among Scriptural scholars. Kircher analyzed the dimensions of the Ark; based on the number of species known to him (excluding insects and other forms thought to arise spontaneously), he calculated that overcrowding would not have been a problem. He also discussed the logistics of the Ark voyage, speculating on whether extra livestock was brought to feed carnivores and what the daily schedule of feeding and caring for animals must have been.

Other cultural work

Kircher reportedly received a copy of the Voynich Manuscript in 1666; it was supposedly sent to him by Johannes Marcus Marci in the hope of his being able to decipher it, and remained in the Collegio Romano until Victor Emmanuel II of Italy annexed the Papal States in 1870, though scepticism as to the authenticity of the story and of the origin of the manuscript itself exists. In his ''Polygraphia nova'' (1663), Kircher proposed an artificial universal language.

Physical sciences

Geology

On a visit to southern Italy in 1638, the ever-curious Kircher was lowered into the crater of Vesuvius, then on the brink of eruption, in order to examine its interior. He was also intrigued by the subterranean rumbling which he heard at the Strait of Messina. His geological and geographical investigations culminated in his ''Mundus Subterraneus'' of 1664, in which he suggested that the tides were caused by water moving to and from a subterranean ocean.

Kircher was also puzzled by fossils. He understood that some were the remains of animals which had turned to stone, but ascribed others to human invention or to the spontaneous generative force of the earth. He ascribed large bones to giant races of humans. Not all the objects which he was attempting to explain were in fact fossils, hence the diversity of explanations. He interpreted mountain ranges as the Earth's skeletal structures exposed by weathering.

Biology

In his book ''Arca Noë'', Kircher argued that after the flood new species were transformed as they moved into different environments, for example, when a deer moved into a colder climate, it became a reindeer. Additionally, he held that many species were formed by hybrids of other species, for example, the armadillo from a combination of turtles and porcupines. He also advocated the theory of spontaneous generation. Because of such hypotheses, some historians have held that Kircher was a proto-evolutionist.

Medicine

Kircher took a notably modern approach to the study of diseases, as early as 1646 using a microscope to investigate the blood of plague victims. In his ''Scrutinium Pestis'' of 1658, he noted the presence of "little worms" or "animalcules" in the blood, and concluded that the disease was caused by microorganisms. The conclusion was correct, although it is likely that what he saw were in fact red or white blood cells and not the plague agent, Yersinia pestis. He also proposed hygienic measures to prevent the spread of disease, such as isolation, quarantine, burning clothes worn by the infected and wearing facemasks to prevent the inhalation of germs.

Technology

In 1646, Kircher published ''Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae'', on the subject of the display of images on a screen using an apparatus similar to the magic lantern as developed by Christiaan Huygens and others. Kircher described the construction of a "catotrophic lamp" that used reflection to project images on the wall of a darkened room. Although Kircher did not invent the device, he made improvements over previous models, and suggested methods by which exhibitors could use his device. Much of the significance of his work arises from Kircher's rational approach towards the demystification of projected images. Previously such images had been used in Europe to mimic supernatural appearances (Kircher himself cites the use of displayed images by the rabbis in the court of King Solomon). Kircher stressed that exhibitors should take great care to inform spectators that such images were purely naturalistic, and not magical in origin.

Kircher also constructed a magnetic clock, the mechanism of which he explained in his ''Magnes'' (1641). The device had originally been invented by another Jesuit, Fr. Linus of Liege, and was described by an acquaintance of Line's in 1634. Kircher's patron Peiresc had claimed that the clock's motion supported the Copernican cosmological model, the argument being that the magnetic sphere in the clock was caused to rotate by the magnetic force of the sun. Kircher's model disproved the hypothesis, showing that the motion could be produced by a water clock in the base of the device. Although Kircher wrote against the Copernican model in his ''Magnes'', supporting instead that of Tycho Brahe, his later ''Itinerarium extaticum'' (1656, revised 1671), presented several systems — including the Copernican — as distinct possibilities. The clock has been reconstructed by Caroline Bouguereau in collaboration with Michael John Gorman and is on display at the Green Library at Stanford University..

The ''Musurgia Universalis'' (1650) sets out Kircher's views on music: he believed that the harmony of music reflected the proportions of the universe. The book includes plans for constructing water-powered automatic organs, notations of birdsong and diagrams of musical instruments. One illustration shows the differences between the ears of humans and other animals. In ''Phonurgia Nova'' (1673) Kircher considered the possibilities of transmitting music to remote places.

Other machines designed by Kircher include an aeolian harp, automatons such as a statue which spoke and listened via a speaking tube, a perpetual motion machine, and a Katzenklavier ("cat piano"). This last of these would have driven spikes into the tails of cats, which would yowl to specified pitches, although Kircher is not known to have actually constructed the instrument.

Combinatorics

Although Kircher's work was not mathematically based, he did develop various systems for generating and counting all combinations of a finite collection of objects (i.e. a finite set). His methods and diagrams are discussed in ''Ars Magna Sciendi, sive Combinatoria'' (sic).

Legacy

Scholarly influence

For most of his professional life, Kircher was one of the scientific stars of the world: according to historian Paula Findlen, he was "the first scholar with a global reputation". His importance was twofold: to the results of his own experiments and research he added information gleaned from his correspondence with over 760 scientists, physicians and above all his fellow Jesuits in all parts of the globe. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls him a "one-man intellectual clearing house". His works, illustrated to his orders, were extremely popular, and he was the first scientist to be able to support himself through the sale of his books. Towards the end of his life his stock fell, as the rationalist Cartesian approach began to dominate (Descartes himself described Kircher as "more quacksalver than savant").

Cultural legacy

Kircher was largely neglected until the late 20th century. One writer attributes his rediscovery to the similarities between his eclectic approach and postmodernism:

He added that "Kircher's postmodern qualities include his subversiveness, his celebrity, his technomania and his bizarre eclecticism". In Robert Graham Irwin's ''For Lust of Knowing'', Kircher is called "one of the last scholars aspiring to know everything", with Kircher's contemporary countryman Gottfried Leibniz cited as the probable "last" such scholar.

As few of Kircher's works have been translated, the contemporary emphasis has been on their aesthetic qualities rather than their actual content, and a succession of exhibitions have highlighted the beauty of their illustrations. Historian Anthony Grafton has said that "the staggeringly strange dark continent of Kircher's work [is] the setting for a Borges story that was never written", while Umberto Eco has written about Kircher in his novel ''The Island of the Day Before'', as well as in his non-fiction works ''The Search for the Perfect Language'' and ''Serendipities''. The contemporary artist Cybèle Varela has paid tribute to Kircher in her exhibition ''Ad Sidera per Athanasius Kircher'', held in the Collegio Romano, in the same place where the Museum Kircherianum was.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles has a hall dedicated to the life of Kircher. The Athanasius Kircher Society had a weblog devoted to unusual ephemera, which very occasionally relate to Kircher. His ethnographic collection is in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome.

Bibliography

Kircher's principal works, in chronological order, are:

! Year	! Title	! Link
1631	''Ars Magnesia''
1635	''Primitiae gnomoniciae catroptricae''
1636	''Prodromus coptus sive aegyptiacus''
1637	''Specula Melitensis encyclica, hoc est syntagma novum instrumentorum physico- mathematicorum''
1641	''Magnes sive de arte magnetica''	1643 edition (second ed.)
1643	''Lingua aegyptiaca restituta''
1645–1646	''Ars Magna Lucis et umbrae''	1646 edition
1650	''Obeliscus Pamphilius: hoc est, Interpretatio noua & Hucusque Intentata Obelisci Hieroglyphici''	1650 edition
1650	''Musurgia universalis, sive ars magna consoni et dissoni''	Volumes I and II, 1650
1652–1655	''Oedipus Aegyptiacus''
1654	''Magnes sive'' (third, expanded edition)
1656	''Itinerarium extaticum s. opificium coeleste''
1657	''Iter extaticum secundum, mundi subterranei prodromus''
1658	''Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Contagiosae Luis, quae dicitur Pestis''
1660	''Pantometrum Kircherianum ... explicatum a G. Schotto''
1661	''Diatribe de prodigiosis crucibus''
1663	''Polygraphia, seu artificium linguarium quo cum omnibus mundi populis poterit quis respondere''
1664–1678	''Mundus subterraneus, quo universae denique naturae divitiae''	Tomus II , 1678
1665	''Historia Eustachio-Mariana''	1665 edition
1665	''Arithmologia sive De abditis numerorum mysterijs''	1665 edition
1666	''Obelisci Aegyptiaci ... interpretatio hieroglyphica''
1667	''China monumentis, qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturae and artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata''	Latin edition (1667) (pages with illustrations only); ''La Chine'', 1670 (French, 1670); Modern English translation
1667	''Magneticum naturae regnum sive disceptatio physiologica''
1668	''Organum mathematicum''
1669	''Principis Cristiani archetypon politicum''
1669	''Latium''	1671 edition
1669	''Ars magna sciendi sive combinatorica''	1669 edition
1673	''Phonurgia nova, sive conjugium mechanico-physicum artis & natvrae paranympha phonosophia concinnatum''
1675	''Arca Noe''
1676	''Sphinx mystagoga: sive Diatribe hieroglyphica, qua Mumiae, ex Memphiticis Pyramidum Adytis Erutae…''	1676 edition
1676	''Obelisci Aegyptiaci''
1679	''Musaeum Collegii Romani Societatis Jesu''
1679	''Turris Babel, Sive Archontologia Qua Primo Priscorum post diluvium hominum vita, mores rerumque gestarum magnitudo, Secundo Turris fabrica civitatumque exstructio, confusio linguarum, & inde gentium transmigrationis, cum principalium inde enatorum idiomatum historia, multiplici eruditione describuntur & explicantur''. Amsterdam, Jansson-Waesberge 1679.
1679	''Tariffa Kircheriana sive mensa Pathagorica expansa''
1680	''Physiologia Kicheriana experimentalis''	1680 edition

See also

List of Jesuit scientists

List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

Library of Sir Thomas Browne

Notes

References

Ralf Kern: Wissenschaftliche Instrumente in ihrer Zeit. Zweiter Band: Vom Compendium zum Einzelinstrument. 17. Jahrhundert. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König 2010, ISBN 978-3-86560-866-6

Further reading

Umberto Eco: ''Serendipities: Language and Lunacy''. Columbia University Press (1998). ISBN 0-231-11134-7.

John Edward Fletcher: A brief survey of the unpublished correspondence of Athanasius Kircher S J. (1602–80), in: ''Manuscripta'', XIII, St. Louis, 1969, pp. 150–60.

Fletcher, John E. A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus Incredibilis’. Edited by Elizabeth Fletcher. Brill Publications, Amsterdam, 2011. ISBN13: 9789004207127

Paula Findlen: ''Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything''. New York, Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-94016-8

John Edward Fletcher: Johann Marcus Marci writes to Athanasius Kircher. Janus, Leyden, LIX (1972), pp. 97–118

John Edward Fletcher: Athanasius Kircher und seine Beziehungen zum gelehrten Europa seiner Zeit Wolfenbütteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung, Band 17, 1988.

John Edward Fletcher: Athanasius Kircher : A Man Under Pressure. 1988

John Edward Fletcher: Athanasius Kircher And Duke August Of Brunswick-Lüneberg : A Chronicle Of Friendship. 1988

John Edward Fletcher: Athanasius Kircher And His Correspondence. 1988

Edward Chaney: "Roma Britannica and the Cultural Memory of Egypt: Lord Arundel and the Obelisk of Domitian", in ''Roma Britannica: Art Patronage and Cultural Exchange in Eighteenth-Century Rome'', eds. D. Marshall, K. Wolfe and S. Russell, British School at Rome, 2011, pp. 147–70

Godwin, Joscelyn: ''Athanasius Kircher's Theatre of the World: The Life and Work of the Last Man to Search for Universal Knowledge''. Inner Traditions (2009). ISBN 978-159477329-7

Michael John Gorman, Between the Demonic and the Miraculous: Athanasius Kircher and the Baroque Culture of Machines, unabridged version of essay published in ''The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher'', ed. Daniel Stolzenberg, Stanford: Stanford University Libraries, 2001, pp. 59-70

Michael John Gorman, The Angel and the Compass: Athanasius Kircher's Magnetic Geography, in Paula Findlen, ed., ''Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything'', New York, Routledge, 2004, pp. 229-249

Caterina Marrone, ''I geroglifici fantastici di Athanasius Kircher'',Viterbo: Nuovi Equilibri, 2002, pp. 166, ISBN 88-7226-653-X.

Caterina Marrone, ''Le lingue utopiche'',Viterbo: Nuovi Equilibri, 2004 [1995], pp. 338 ISBN 88-7226-815-X.

Schmidt, Edward W. :''The Last Renaissance Man: Athanasius Kircher, SJ''. Company: The World of Jesuits and Their Friends. 19(2), Winter 2001–2002.

Jean-Pierre Thiollet, ''Je m'appelle Byblos'', Paris, H & D, 2005 (p. 254). ISBN 978-2914266048

Cybèle Varela: ''Ad Sidera per Athanasius Kircher''. Rome, Gangemi, 2008. ISBN 978-88492-1416-1

Zielinski, Siegfried. ''Deep Time of the Media''. The MIT Press (April 30, 2008) ISBN 978-0262740326. p. 113-157.

Giunia Totaro, ''L'autobiographie d'Athanasius Kircher. L'écriture d'un jésuite entre vérité et invention au seuil de l'œuvre. Introduction et traduction française et italienne'', Bern: Peter Lang 2009, p. 430 ISBN 978-3-03911-793-2.

Tiziana Pangrazi, ''La ''Musurgia Universalis'' di Athanasius Kircher'', Firenze: Olschki 2009, pp. 206, ISBN 978-88-222-5886-1

External links

Works by Kircher

''Athanasius Kircher'' Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbütteler Digitale Bibliothek... search for ''Athanasius Kircher'')

''Athanasius Kircher'' ECHO (European Cultural Heritage Online)

''Athanasius Kircher'' Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

''Athanasius Kircher'' Gallica

''Athanasius Kircher'' Titles; ''Athanasius Kircher'' as author books.google.com

''Athanasius Kircher'' archive.org

''Athanasius Kircher'' Munich Digitisation Centre (MDZ)

''Athanasius Kircher'' University of Strasbourg

''Arca Noë'' (1675) in the digital collections of the Linda Hall Library

An English translation of ''China Illustrata'' appearing as an "Appendix" in: Johan Nieuhof, ''An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China : delivered by their excellencies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking wherein the cities, towns, villages, ports, rivers, &c.; in their passages from Canton to Peking are ingeniously described by John Nieuhoff ; also an epistle of Father John Adams, their antagonist, concerning the whole negotiation ; with an appendix of several remarks taken out of Father Athanasius Kircher ; Englished and set forth with their several sculptures by John Ogilby'' (1673),

Sources

Athanasius Kircher, Dude of Wonders Retrieved Mar. 9, 2009.

Athanasius Kircher Image Gallery Retrieved Mar. 9, 2009.

Athanasius Kircher's Magnetic Clock Internet Archive.

Catholic Encyclopedia Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

Glasgow University Library: Musurgia Universalis Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

Infoplease: Athanasius Kircher Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

The Correspondence of Athanasius Kircher Internet Archive

The Correspondence of Athanasius Kircher. Originals letters Historical Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University

The First Use of the Microscope in Medicine Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

The Galileo Project Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

Owners of the Voynich Manuscript Retrieved Feb. 3, 2005.

The World is Bound With Secret Knots Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

Voynich MS - Biographies Retrieved Oct. 16, 2004.

Further reading

Fairfield University: Athanasius Kircher

An extensive subcategorized link directory about A. Kircher

Geology and A. Kircher (PDF files, in German)

The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California includes models of Kircher's inventions.

University of Lucerne, Switzerland: Kircher-research project (in German)

International Bibliography of Athanasius Kircher Research

Kircherianum Virtuale: A link directory about Kircher and related subjects

Athanasius Kircher: Contains a short biography, an English translation of Kirchers most wellknown work about the Magic Lantern and of a letter from Kircher to a Swedish prince

Athanasius Kircher Project at Stanford University. Includes high-quality scans of many illustrations from his books.

Category:1600s births Category:1680 deaths Category:People from Geisa Category:Christian Hebraists Category:German Egyptologists Category:German inventors Category:German Jesuits Category:German music theorists Category:German philologists Category:German scientists Category:German Roman Catholic priests Category:German writers Category:Coptologists Category:Christian Kabbalists Category:Roman Catholic cleric–scientists Category:Proto-evolutionary biologists

ar:أثانيسيوس كيرتشر ca:Athanasius Kircher cs:Athanasius Kircher de:Athanasius Kircher el:Ατανάζιους Κίρχερ es:Atanasio Kircher eo:Athanasius Kircher fa:آتاناسیوس کریچر fr:Athanasius Kircher fy:Athanasius Kircher gl:Athanasius Kircher hr:Athanasius Kircher id:Athanasius Kircher is:Athanasius Kircher it:Athanasius Kircher la:Athanasius Kircherus li:Athanasius Kircher nl:Athanasius Kircher ja:アタナシウス・キルヒャー no:Athanasius Kircher pl:Athanasius Kircher pt:Athanasius Kircher ro:Athanasius Kircher ru:Кирхер, Атанасиус sc:Athanasiu Kircher sl:Athanasius Kircher fi:Athanasius Kircher sv:Athanasius Kircher zh:阿塔纳斯·珂雪

Name	Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Birth place	Paddington, London, England
Death place	Nyeri, Kenya
Nickname	B-P
Branch	British Army
Serviceyears	1876–1910
Rank	Lieutenant-General
Commands	Chief of Staff, Second Matabele War (1896–1897)5th Dragoon Guards in India (1897)Inspector General of Cavalry, England (1903)
Battles	Anglo-Ashanti Wars, Second Matabele War, Siege of Mafeking, Second Boer War
Awards	Ashanti Star (1895),Matabele Campaign, British South Africa Company Medal (1896),Queen's South Africa Medal (1899), King's South Africa Medal ( 1902),Boy Scouts Silver WolfBoy Scouts Silver Buffalo Award (1926),World Scout Committee Bronze Wolf (1935),Großes Dankabzeichen des ÖPB (1927)Großes Ehrenzeichen der Republik am Bande (1931)Goldene Gemse (1931) Grand-Cross in the Order of Orange-Nassau (1932),Order of Merit (1937),Wateler Peace Prize (1937)Order of St Michael and St George,Royal Victorian Order,Order of the Bath
Laterwork	Founder of the international Scouting Movement; writer; artist
Signature	Baden-Powell_signature.svg }}

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB (; 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941), also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement.

After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the town in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote ''Scouting for Boys'', published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island with the local Boys' Brigade and sons of his friends that began on 1 August 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting.

After his marriage to Olave St Clair Soames, Baden-Powell, his sister Agnes Baden-Powell and notably his wife actively gave guidance to the Scouting Movement and the Girl Guides Movement. Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died and was buried in 1941.

Early life

Baden-Powell was born as Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell, or more familiarly as Stephe Powell, at 6 Stanhope Street (now 11 Stanhope Terrace), Paddington in London, on 22 February 1857. He was named for his godfather, Robert Stephenson, the railway and civil engineer; his third name was his mother's maiden name. His father Reverend Baden Powell, a Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University, already had four teenage children from the second of his two previous marriages. On 10 March 1846 at St Luke's Church, Chelsea, Reverend Powell married Henrietta Grace Smyth (3 September 1824 – 13 October 1914), eldest daughter of Admiral William Henry Smyth and 28 years his junior. Quickly they had Warington (early 1847), George (late 1847), Augustus (1849) and Francis (1850). After three further children who died when very young, they had Stephe, Agnes (1858) and Baden (1860). The three youngest children and the often ill Augustus were close friends. Reverend Powell died when Stephe was three, and as tribute to his father and to set her own children apart from their half-siblings and cousins, the mother changed the family name to ''Baden-Powell''. Subsequently, Stephe was raised by his mother, a strong woman who was determined that her children would succeed. Baden-Powell would say of her in 1933 "The whole secret of my getting on, lay with my mother."

After attending Rose Hill School, Tunbridge Wells, during which his favourite brother Augustus died, Stephe Baden-Powell was awarded a scholarship to Charterhouse, a prestigious public school. His first introduction to Scouting skills was through stalking and cooking game while avoiding teachers in the nearby woods, which were strictly out-of-bounds. He also played the piano and violin, was an ambidextrous artist, and enjoyed acting. Holidays were spent on yachting or canoeing expeditions with his brothers.

Military career

In 1876, R.S.S. Baden-Powell, as he styled himself then, joined the 13th Hussars in India with the rank of lieutenant. He enhanced and honed his military scouting skills amidst the Zulu in the early 1880s in the Natal province of South Africa, where his regiment had been posted, and where he was Mentioned in Despatches. During one of his travels, he came across a large string of wooden beads, worn by the Zulu king Dinizulu, which was later incorporated into the Wood Badge training programme he started after he founded the Scouting Movement. Baden-Powell's skills impressed his superiors and he was Brevetted Major as Military Secretary and senior Aide-de-camp of the Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Malta, his uncle General Sir Henry Augustus Smyth. He was posted in Malta for three years, also working as intelligence officer for the Mediterranean for the Director of Military Intelligence. He frequently travelled disguised as a butterfly collector, incorporating plans of military installations into his drawings of butterfly wings.

Baden-Powell returned to Africa in 1896 to aid the British South Africa Company colonials under siege in Bulawayo during the Second Matabele War. This was a formative experience for him not only because he had the time of his life commanding reconnaissance missions into enemy territory in Matobo Hills, but because many of his later Boy Scout ideas took hold here. It was during this campaign that he first met and befriended the American scout Frederick Russell Burnham, who introduced Baden-Powell to the American Old West and ''woodcraft'' (i.e., scoutcraft), and here that he wore his signature Stetson campaign hat and kerchief for the first time. After Rhodesia, Baden-Powell took part in a successful British invasion of Ashanti, West Africa in the Fourth Ashanti War, and at the age of 40 was promoted to lead the 5th Dragoon Guards in 1897 in India. A few years later he wrote a small manual, entitled ''Aids to Scouting,'' a summary of lectures he had given on the subject of military scouting, to help train recruits. Using this and other methods he was able to train them to think independently, use their initiative, and survive in the wilderness.

Baden-Powell was accused of illegally executing a prisoner of war, Matabele chief Uwini, in 1896, who had been promised his life would be spared if he surrendered. Uwini was shot by firing squad under Baden-Powell's instructions. Baden-Powell was cleared by an inquiry, and later claimed he was "released without a stain on my character".

Baden-Powell returned to South Africa prior to the Second Boer War and was engaged in further military actions against the Zulus. By this time, he had been promoted to be the youngest colonel in the British Army. He was responsible for the organisation of a force of Legion of Frontiersmen to assist the regular army. While arranging this, he was trapped in the Siege of Mafeking, and surrounded by a Boer army, at times in excess of 8,000 men. Although wholly outnumbered, the garrison withstood the siege for 217 days. Much of this is attributable to cunning military deceptions instituted at Baden-Powell's behest as commander of the garrison. Fake minefields were planted and his soldiers were ordered to simulate avoiding non-existent barbed wire while moving between trenches. Baden-Powell did most of the reconnaissance work himself. In one instance noting that the Boers had not removed the rail line, Baden-Powell loaded an armoured locomotive with sharpshooters and successfully sent it down the rails into the heart of the Boer encampment and back again in a strategic attempt to decapitate the Boer leadership.

Contrary views of Baden-Powell's actions during the Siege of Mafeking pointed out that his success in resisting the Boers was secured at the expense of the lives of the native African soldiers and civilians, including members of his own African garrison. Pakenham stated that Baden-Powell drastically reduced the rations to the natives' garrison. However, in 2001, after subsequent research, Pakenham decidedly retreated from this position.

During the siege, a cadet corps, consisting of white boys below fighting age, was used to stand guard, carry messages, assist in hospitals and so on, freeing the men for military service. Although Baden-Powell did not form this cadet corps himself, and there is no evidence that he took much notice of them during the Siege, he was sufficiently impressed with both their courage and the equanimity with which they performed their tasks to use them later as an object lesson in the first chapter of ''Scouting for Boys''. The siege was lifted in the Relief of Mafeking on 16 May 1900. Promoted to major-general, Baden-Powell became a national hero. After organising the South African Constabulary, the national police force, he returned to England to take up a post as Inspector General of Cavalry in 1903. In 1907 he was appointed to command a division in the newly-formed Territorial Force.

In 1910 Lieutenant-General Baden-Powell decided to retire from the Army reputedly on the advice of King Edward VII, who suggested that he could better serve his country by promoting Scouting.

On the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Baden-Powell put himself at the disposal of the War Office. No command was given him, for, as Lord Kitchener said: "he could lay his hand on several competent divisional generals but could find no one who could carry on the invaluable work of the Boy Scouts." It was widely rumoured that Baden-Powell was engaged in spying, and intelligence officers took great care to inculcate the myth.

Scouting movement

On his return from Africa in 1903, Baden-Powell found that his military training manual, ''Aids to Scouting'', had become a best-seller, and was being used by teachers and youth organisations. Following his involvement in the Boys' Brigade as Brigade Secretary and Officer in charge of its scouting section, with encouragement from his friend, William Alexander Smith, Baden-Powell decided to re-write ''Aids to Scouting'' to suit a youth readership. In August 1907 he held a camp on Brownsea Island for twenty-two boys from local Boys Brigade companies and sons of friends of Baden-Powell's from public schools Eton and Harrow to test out the applicability of his ideas. Baden-Powell was also influenced by Ernest Thompson Seton, who founded the Woodcraft Indians. Seton gave Baden-Powell a copy of his book ''The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians'' and they met in 1906. The first book on the Scout Movement, Baden-Powell's ''Scouting for Boys'' was published in six instalments in 1908, and has sold approximately 150 million copies as the fourth best-selling book of the 20th century.

Boys and girls spontaneously formed Scout troops and the Scouting Movement had inadvertently started, first as a national, and soon an international obsession. The Scouting Movement was to grow up in friendly parallel relations with the Boys' Brigade. A rally for all Scouts was held at Crystal Palace in London in 1909, at which Baden-Powell discovered the first Girl Scouts. The Girl Guide Movement was subsequently founded in 1910 under the auspices of Baden-Powell's sister, Agnes Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell's friend, Juliette Gordon Low, was encouraged by him to bring the Movement to America, where she founded the Girl Scouts of the USA.

In 1920, the 1st World Scout Jamboree took place in Olympia, and Baden-Powell was acclaimed Chief Scout of the World. Baden-Powell was created a Baronet in the 1921 New Year Honours and Baron Baden-Powell, of Gilwell, in the County of Essex, on 17 September 1929, Gilwell Park being the International Scout Leader training centre. After receiving this honour, Baden-Powell mostly styled himself "Baden-Powell of Gilwell".

In 1929, during the 3rd World Scout Jamboree, he received as a present a new 20 horse power Rolls-Royce car (chassis number GVO-40, registration OU 2938) and an Eccles Caravan. This combination well served the Baden-Powells in their further travels around Europe. The caravan was nicknamed Eccles and is now on display at Gilwell Park. The car, nicknamed Jam Roll, was sold after his death by Olave Baden-Powell in 1945. Jam Roll and Eccles were reunited at Gilwell for the 21st World Scout Jamboree in 2007. Recently it has been purchased on behalf of Scouting and is owned by a charity, B-P Jam Roll Ltd. Funds are being raised to repay the loan that was used to purchase the car. Baden-Powell also had a positive impact on improvements in youth education. Under his dedicated command the world Scouting Movement grew. By 1922 there were more than a million Scouts in 32 countries; by 1939 the number of Scouts was in excess of 3.3 million.

At the 5th World Scout Jamboree in 1937, Baden-Powell gave his farewell to Scouting, and retired from public Scouting life. 22 February, the joint birthday of Robert and Olave Baden-Powell, continues to be marked as Founder's Day by Scouts and Thinking Day by Guides to remember and celebrate the work of the Chief Scout and Chief Guide of the World.

In his final letter to the Scouts, Baden-Powell wrote:

...I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have a happy life too. I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness does not come from being rich, nor merely being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man. Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one. But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. 'Be Prepared' in this way, to live happy and to die happy — stick to your Scout Promise always — even after you have ceased to be a boy — and God help you to do it.

Personal life

In January 1912, Baden-Powell met Olave St Clair Soames, on the ocean liner, ''Arcadian'', heading for New York to start one of his Scouting World Tours. She was 23, while he was 55; they shared the same birthday, 22 February. They became engaged in September of the same year, causing a media sensation due to Baden-Powell's fame. To avoid press intrusion, they married in secret on 31 October 1912, at St Peter's Church in Parkstone. The Scouts of England each donated a penny to buy Baden-Powell a wedding gift, a car (note that this is not the Rolls-Royce they were presented with in 1929). There is a monument to their marriage inside St Mary's Church, Brownsea Island.

Baden-Powell and Olave lived in Pax Hill near Bentley, Hampshire from about 1919 until 1939. The Bentley house was a gift of her father. Directly after he had married, Baden-Powell began to suffer persistent headaches, which were considered by his doctor to be of psychosomatic origin and treated with dream analysis. The headaches disappeared upon his moving into a makeshift bedroom set up on his balcony. The Baden-Powells had three children, one son and two daughters, who all acquired the courtesy title of "The Honourable" in 1929 as children of a baron. The son succeeded his father in 1941 to the Baden-Powell barony and the title of Baron Baden-Powell.

Arthur Robert Peter (Peter), later 2nd Baron Baden-Powell (1913–1962). He married Carine Crause-Boardman in 1936, and had three children: Robert Crause, later 3rd Baron Baden-Powell; David Michael (Michael), current heir to the titles, and Wendy.

Heather (1915–1986), who married John King and had two children: Michael, who died in the sinking of SS Heraklion, and Timothy;

Betty (1917–2004), who married Gervas Charles Robert Clay in 1936 and had a daughter: Gillian, and three sons: Robin, Nigel and Crispin.

In addition, when Olave's sister Auriol Davidson née Soames died in 1919, Olave and Robert took her three nieces, Christian (1912–1975), Clare (1913–1980), and Yvonne, (1918–1995?), into their family and brought them up as their own children. In 1939, he and his wife moved to a cottage he had commissioned in Nyeri, Kenya, near Mount Kenya, where he had previously been to recuperate. The small one-room house, which he named ''Paxtu'', was located on the grounds of the Outspan Hotel, owned by Eric Sherbrooke Walker, Baden-Powell's first private secretary and one of the first Scout inspectors. Walker also owned the Treetops Hotel, approx 17 km out in the Aberdare Mountains, often visited by Baden-Powell and people of the Happy Valley set. The Paxtu cottage is integrated into the Outspan Hotel buildings and serves as a small Scouting museum.

Baden-Powell died on 8 January 1941 and is buried in Nyeri, in St. Peter's Cemetery His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in the centre, which is the trail sign for "Going home", or "I have gone home": When his wife Olave died, her ashes were sent to Kenya and interred beside her husband. Kenya has declared Baden-Powell's grave a national monument.

Personal beliefs

Tim Jeal, who wrote the biography ''Baden-Powell'', argues that Baden-Powell's distrust of communism led to his implicit support, through naïveté, of fascism. In 1939 Baden-Powell noted in his diary: "Lay up all day. Read ''Mein Kampf''. A wonderful book, with good ideas on education, health, propaganda, organisation etc. – and ideals which Hitler does not practise himself." Baden-Powell admired Benito Mussolini early in the Italian fascist leader's career.

Some very early Scouting "Thanks" badges had a swastika symbol on them. According to biographer Michael Rosenthal, Baden-Powell used the swastika because he was a Nazi sympathiser. Jeal, however, argues that Baden-Powell was naïve of the symbol's growing association with fascism and maintained that his use of the symbol related to its earlier, original meaning of "good luck" in Sanskrit, for which purpose the symbol had been used for centuries prior to the rise of fascism. In conflict with the idea that Powell was a Nazi supporter is the fact that Baden-Powell was a target of the Nazi regime in the Black Book, which listed individuals who were to be arrested during and after an invasion of Great Britain as part of Operation Sea Lion. Scouting was regarded as a dangerous spy organisation by the Nazis. Baden-Powell used the swastika as a "Thanks" badge for the Scout Movement well before Hitler used it, and when Hitler did start to use it, Baden-Powell ceased to use it. Previously, the swastika had been used by Rudyard Kipling as a logo on his books.

Artist and writer

Baden-Powell made paintings and drawings almost every day of his life. Most have a humorous or informative character. He published books and other texts during his years of military service both to finance his life and to educate his men.

Baden-Powell was regarded as an excellent storyteller. During his whole life he told 'ripping yarns' to audiences. After having published ''Scouting for Boys'', Baden-Powell kept on writing more handbooks and educative materials for all Scouts, as well as directives for Scout Leaders. In his later years, he also wrote about the Scout Movement and his ideas for its future. He spent the last decade of his life in Africa, and many of his later books had African themes. Currently, many pages of his field diary, complete with drawings, are on display at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas.

Sexuality

Early discussion of Baden-Powell's sexuality focused on his relationship with his close friend Kenneth McLaren. Tim Jeal's later biography discusses the relationship and concludes that there is no conclusive evidence that this friendship was physical. Jeal then examines Baden-Powell's views on women, his appreciation of the male form, his military relationships and his marriage, indicating that Baden-Powell could be a repressed homosexual. Jeal's conclusion is shared by some biographers and disputed by others, but not yet examined in any detail by scholars.

Works

;Military books

1884: ''Reconnaissance and Scouting''

1885: ''Cavalry Instruction''

1889: ''Pigsticking or Hoghunting''

1896: ''The Downfall of Prempeh''

1897: ''The Matabele Campaign''

1899: ''Aids to Scouting for N.-C.Os and Men''

1900: ''Sport in War''

1901: ''Notes and Instructions for the South African Constabulary''

1914: ''Quick Training for War''

;Scouting books

1908: ''Scouting for Boys''

1909: ''Yarns for Boy Scouts''

1912: ''The Handbook for the Girl Guides or How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire'' (co-authored with Agnes Baden-Powell)

1913: ''Boy Scouts Beyond The Sea: My World Tour''

1916: ''The Wolf Cub's handbook''

1918: ''Girl Guiding''

1919: ''Aids To Scoutmastership''

1921: ''What Scouts Can Do: More Yarns''

1922: ''Rovering to Success''

1929: ''Scouting and Youth Movements''

est 1929: ''Last Message to Scouts''

1935: ''Scouting Round the World''

;Other books

1905: ''Ambidexterity'' (co-authored with John Jackson)

1915: ''Indian Memories''

1915: ''My Adventures as a Spy'' 1916: ''Young Knights of the Empire: Their Code, and Further Scout Yarns''

1921: ''An Old Wolf's Favourites''

1927: ''Life's Snags and How to Meet Them''

1933: ''Lessons From the Varsity of Life''

1934: ''Adventures and Accidents''

1936: ''Adventuring to Manhood''

1937: ''African Adventures''

1938: ''Birds and beasts of Africa''

1939: ''Paddle Your Own Canoe''

1940: ''More Sketches Of Kenya''

;Sculpture 1905 ''John Smith''

Awards

In 1937 Baden-Powell was appointed to the Order of Merit, one of the most exclusive awards in the British honours system, and he was also awarded 28 decorations by foreign states, including the Grand Officer of the Portuguese Order of Christ, the Grand Commander of the Greek Order of the Redeemer (1920), the Commander of the French Légion d'honneur (1925), the First Class of the Hungarian Order of Merit (1929), the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog of Denmark, the Grand Cross of the Order of the White Lion, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix, and the Order of Polonia Restituta.

The Silver Wolf Award worn by Robert Baden-Powell is handed down the line of his successors, with the current Chief Scout, Bear Grylls wearing this original award.

The Bronze Wolf Award, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting, was first awarded to Baden-Powell by a unanimous decision of the then ''International Committee'' on the day of the institution of the Bronze Wolf in Stockholm in 1935. He was also the first recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award in 1926, the highest award conferred by the Boy Scouts of America.

In 1927, at the Swedish National Jamboree he was awarded by the Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund with the "''Großes Dankabzeichen des ÖPB''.

In 1931 Baden-Powell received the highest award of the First Austrian Republic (''Großes Ehrenzeichen der Republik am Bande'') out of the hands of President Wilhelm Miklas. Baden-Powell was also one of the first and few recipients of the ''Goldene Gemse'', the highest award conferred by the Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund.

In 1931, Major Frederick Russell Burnham dedicated Mount Baden-Powell in California to his old Scouting friend from forty years before. Today their friendship is honoured in perpetuity with the dedication of the adjoining peak, Mount Burnham.

Baden-Powell was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on numerous occasions, including 10 separate nominations in 1928.

As part of the Scouting 2007 Centenary, Nepal renamed Urkema Peak to Baden-Powell Peak.

Styles

:''The family name legally changed from Powell to Baden-Powell by Royal Licence on 30 April 1902.''

1857–1860: Robert Stephenson Smyth Powell

1860–1876: Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1876: Sub-Lieutenant Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1876–1884: Lieutenant Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1884–1892: Captain Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1892–1896: Major Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1896-25 April 1897: Major (Bvt. Lieutenant-Colonel) Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

25 April – 7 May 1897: Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

7 May 1897–1901: Lieutenant-Colonel (Bvt. Colonel) Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1901–1902: Major-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

1902–1907: Major-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, CB

1907–12 October 1909: Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, CB

12 October – 9 November 1909: Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, KCVO, CB

9 November 1909–1912: Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, KCB, KCVO

1912–1923: Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, KCB, KCVO, KStJ

1923–1927: Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, Bt, GCVO, KCB, KStJ

1927–1929: Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, Bt, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, KStJ

1929–1937: Lieutenant-General The Right Honourable The Lord Baden-Powell, Bt, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, KStJ

1937–1941: Lieutenant-General The Right Honourable The Lord Baden-Powell, Bt, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, KStJ

See also

Baden-Powell House

Scouting memorials

Notes

Related readings: biographies

|location=London |publisher=Grant Richards |year=1900}}

External links

What would Baden-Powell do?

Category:Scouting pioneers Category:The Scout Association Category:Guiding Category:Recipients of the Bronze Wolf Award Category:British Army generals Category:13th Hussars officers Category:British spies Category:British military personnel of the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War Category:British Army personnel of the Second Boer War Category:People of the Second Matabele War Category:Pre–World War I spies Category:People from Paddington Category:Old Carthusians Category:Outdoor educators Category:English Anglicans Category:Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Category:Knights of Grace of the Order of St John Category:Members of the Order of Merit Category:Knights of Christ Category:Commandeurs of the Légion d'honneur Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of the Phoenix (Greece) Category:Commanders with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit (Hungary) Category:People of the Victorian era Category:People of the Edwardian era Category:5th Dragoon Guards officers Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of the Dannebrog Category:Grand Crosses of the Order of the White Lion Category:Grand Commanders of the Order of the Redeemer Category:Recipients of the Silver Wolf Award Category:1857 births Category:1941 deaths

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