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The Great Sphinx of Giza against Khafre's Pyramid at the Giza pyramid complex

Egyptology (from Egypt and Greek -λογία, -logia. Arabic: علم المصريات‎) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the 4th century AD. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”. In Europe, particularly on the Continent, Egyptology is primarily regarded as being a philological discipline, while in North America it is often regarded as a branch of archaeology.

History[link]

The first explorers[link]

The first explorers were the ancient Egyptians themselves. Thutmose IV restored the Sphinx and had the dream that inspired his restoration carved on the famous Dream Stele. Less than two centuries later, Prince Khaemweset, fourth son of Ramesses II, is famed for identifying and restoring historic buildings, tombs and temples including the pyramid.^[1]

Graeco-Roman Period[link]

Some of the first historical accounts of Egypt were given by Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus and the largely lost work of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, during the reign of Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II in the 3rd century BC. The Ptolemies were much interested in the work of the ancient Egyptians, and many of the Egyptian monuments, including the pyramids, were restored by them (although they built many new temples in the Egyptian style). The Romans too carried out restoration work in this most ancient of lands.

Development of the field[link]

Muslim scholars[link]

Abdul Latif al-Baghdadi, a teacher at Cairo's Al-Azhar University in the 13th century, wrote detailed descriptions on ancient Egyptian monuments.^[2] Similarly, the 15th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi wrote detailed accounts of Egyptian antiquities.

European explorers[link]

European exploration and travel writings of ancient Egypt commenced from the 13th century onward, with only occasional detours into a more scientific approach, notably by Claude Sicard, Benoît de Maillet, Frederic Louis Norden and Richard Pococke. In the early 17th century, John Greaves measured the pyramids, having inspected the broken Obelisk of Domitian in Rome, then destined for the Earl of Arundel's collection in London.^[3] He went on to publish the illustrated Pyramidographia in 1646, while the Jesuit scientist-priest Athanasius Kircher was perhaps the first to hint at the phonetic importance of Egyptian hieroglyphs, demonstrating Coptic as a vestige of early Egyptian, for which he is considered a "founder" of Egyptology.^[4] In the late 18th century, with Napoleon's scholars' recording of Egyptian flora, fauna and history (published as Description de l'Egypte), the study of many aspects of ancient Egypt became more scientifically oriented. The British captured Egypt from the French and gained the Rosetta Stone. Modern Egyptology is generally perceived as beginning about 1822.

Modern Egyptology[link]

A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs

Egyptology’s modern history begins with the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte. The subsequent publication of Description de l’Égypte between 1809 and 1829 made numerous ancient Egyptian source materials available to Europeans for the first time.^[5] Jean François Champollion, Thomas Young and Ippolito Rosellini were some of the first Egyptologists of wide acclaim. The German Karl Richard Lepsius was an early participant in the investigations of Egypt; mapping, excavating, and recording several sites. Champollion announced his general decipherment of the system of Egyptian hieroglyphics for the first time, employing the Rosetta Stone as his primary aid. The Stone's decipherment was a very important development of Egyptology. With subsequently ever-increasing knowledge of Egyptian writing and language, the study of Ancient Egyptian civilization was able to proceed with greater academic rigour and with all the added impetus that comprehension of the written sources was able to engender. Egyptology became more professional via work of William Matthew Flinders Petrie, among others. Petrie introduced techniques of field preservation, recording, and excavating. Howard Carter's expedition brought much acclaim to the field of Egyptology. Many highly educated amateurs now also travelled to Egypt, however, including women such as Harriet Martineau and Florence Nightingale, who both left fascinatingly philosophical accounts of their travels, which revealed learned familiarity with all the latest European Egyptology.^[6]

A tradition of collecting objets-orientalle (also Mediterranean (Roman and Greek) passed from Jean-Martin Charcot to Sigmund Freud.^[7][8]

In the modern era, the Ministry of State for Antiquities^[9] controls excavation permits for Egyptologists to conduct their work. The field can now use geophysical methods and other applications of modern sensing techniques to further Egyptology.

Egyptology as an Academic Discipline[link]

Egyptology was established as an academic discipline through the research of Emmanuel de Rougé in France, Samuel Birch in England, and Heinrich Brugsch in Germany. In 1880, Flinders Petrie, another British Egyptologist, revolutionized the field of archaeology through controlled and scientifically recorded excavations. Petrie's work determined that Egyptian culture dated back as early as 4500 BCE. The British Egypt Exploration Fund founded in 1882 and other Egyptologists promoted Petrie’s methods. Other scholars worked on producing a hieroglyphic dictionary, developing a Demotic lexicon, and establishing an outline of ancient Egyptian history.^[5]

In the United States, the founding of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the expedition of James Henry Breasted to Egypt and Nubia established Egyptology as a legitimate field of study. In 1924, Breasted also started the Epigraphic Survey with the goal of making and publishing accurate copies of monuments. In the late 19th and early 20th century the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the University of Pennsylvania; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Brooklyn Institute of Fine Arts; and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University also conducted excavations in Egypt, expanding American collections.^[5]

Some universities and colleges offer degrees in Egyptology. In the United States, these include the University of Chicago, Brown University, New York University and Yale University. There are also many programs in the United Kingdom, including those at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Liverpool, and the University of London. German institutions have remained prominent in Egyptology and have produced many of the field's most well-respected experts.^[10]

Societies for Egyptology include:

• The Society for the Study of Ancient Egypt^[11]
• The Society for the Study of Ancient Egyptian Antiquities, Canada^[12]
• Sussex Egyptology Society Online^[13]
• Egypt Exploration Society^[14]

According to the UCLA the standard text that scholars referenced for studies of Egyptology was for three decades or more, the Lexicon der Ägyptologie. The first volume published in 1975 (containing largely German-language articles, with a few in English and French).^[15]

See also[link]

Egyptology portal

• List of Egyptologists
• List of writers about Egypt till the 19th century
• Egyptomania
• Excavation
• Artifacts

Other related disciplines not mentioned in the article:

• Anthropology
• Archaeoastronomy
• Architecture
• Art history
• Assyriology
• Biblical studies
• Chronology
• Epigraphy
• Ethnoarchaeology
• Iranology
• Language studies
• Philology
• Social history

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• David, Rosalie. Religion and magic in ancient Egypt. Penguin Books, 2002. ISBN 0-14-026252-0
• Chaney, Edward. 'Egypt in England and America: The Cultural Memorials of Religion, Royalty and Revolution', in: Sites of Exchange: European Crossroads and Faultlines, eds. M. Ascari and A. Corrado (Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York,2006), 39-74.
• Chaney, Edward. "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.
• Jacq, Christian. Magic and mystery in ancient Egypt. Souvenir Press, 1998. ISBN 0-285-63462-3
• Manley, Bill (ed.). The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05123-2
• Mertz, Barbara. Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. Dodd Mead, 1978. ISBN 0-396-07575-4
• Mertz, Barbara. Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt. Bedrick, 1990. ISBN 0-87226-223-5
• Mysteries of Egypt. National Geographic Society, 1999. ISBN 0-7922-9752-0

External links[link]

Look up Egyptology or Egyptologist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• EEF list version 59 (September 1, 2011) retrieved 18:36 18/10/2011(list shows Egyptology societies and Institutes)
• © COPYRIGHT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ANTIQUITYOFMAN.COM retrieved 02:14,GMT 15.10.2006 (listed essays relevant to antiquity)
• List of web sites for museums whose primary focus is on Egyptology at the Open Directory Project
• Griffiths Institute OXFORD UNIVERSITY (lists for further research : A key to the translation exercises in Sir Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar,Electronic publications,Egyptological databases,Dictionaries and lexicography, Useful Web sites & Main libraries with Egyptological holdings)
• website of the American University in Cairo Press retrieved (in situ) 12:21 20/10/2011 (shows: Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000 (Edited by Zahi Hawass & Lyla Pinch Brock)

v t e Ancient Egypt Outline Index Glossary List of major topics Agriculture Architecture Art Burial customs Chronology Cuisine Dynasties Geography History Literature Mathematics Medicine Military Music Philosophy Religion Pharaohs (list) People Language Sites Technology Trade Writing Egyptology Egyptologists Egyptian Museum Category Commons Portal WikiProject

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Athanasius Kircher
Portrait of Kircher from Mundus Subterraneus, 1664
Born	2 May 1601 or 1602 Geisa, Abbacy of Fulda
Died	27 November or 28 November 1680 Rome
Nationality	German
Religion	Roman Catholicism (Jesuit scientist-priest)[1]

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".^[2]

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".^[3] Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as "the last Renaissance man".

Life[link]

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 sometimes 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^{[citation needed]}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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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[link]

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.^[4]

Linguistic and cultural studies[link]

Egyptology[link]

The Coptic alphabet, from Prodromus coptus sive aegyptiacus

The last known example of Egyptian hieroglyphics dates from AD 394, after which all knowledge of hieroglyphics was lost.^[5] 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.^[6] The first modern study of hieroglyphics came with Piero Valeriano Bolzani's nonsensical Hieroglyphica (1566),^[5] but Kircher was the most famous of the "decipherers" between ancient and modern times and the most famous Egyptologist of his day.^[7] 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".^[7] 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.^[7][8] 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".^[8] He also recognised the relationship between the hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts.

Frontispiece to Kircher's Oedipus Ægyptiacus; the Sphinx, confronted by Kircher's learning, admits he has solved her riddle.

Between 1650 and 1654, Kircher published four volumes of "translations" of hieroglyphs in the context of his Coptic studies.^[7] However, according to Steven Frimmer, "none of them even remotely fitted the original texts".^[7] 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".^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} However, according to Joseph MacDonnell, it was "because of Kircher's work that scientists knew what to look for when interpreting the Rosetta stone".^[9] Another scholar of ancient Egypt, Erik Iverson, concluded:

It is therefore Kircher's incontestable merit that he was the first to have discovered the phonetic value of an Egyptian hieroglyph. From a humanistic as well as an intellectual point of view Egyptology may very well be proud of having Kircher as its founder.^[10]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Sinology[link]

Map of China, China Illustrata

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^[11] and Martino Martini.

China Illustrata emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined: the book noted the early presence of Nestorian Christians (with a Latin translation of the Nestorian Stele of Xi'an provided by Boym and his Chinese collaborator, Andrew Zheng),^[12] 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[link]

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[link]

Kircher received a copy of the Voynich Manuscript in 1666; sent to him by Johannes Marcus Marci in the hope of Kircher being able to decipher it.^[13] The manuscript 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[link]

Geology[link]

Kircher's model of the Earth's internal fires, from Mundus Subterraneus

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.^[14] 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.^[15]

Biology[link]

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.^[16] Because of such hypotheses, some historians have held that Kircher was a proto-evolutionist.^[17]

Medicine[link]

The ears of a human, cow, horse, dog, leopard, cat, rat, pig, sheep and goose illustrated in Musurgia Universalis

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[link]

Kircher's magnetic clock

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.^[18] 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.^[19]

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[link]

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[link]

Turris Babel: with typical eclecticism, Kircher illustrates the impossibility of the Tower of Babel having reached the moon, 1679

Scholarly influence[link]

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[link]

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

[Four hundred] years after his birth there is a revival of interest in Kircher, perhaps because Kircher can be considered as the premodern root of postmodern thinking. With his labyrinthine mind, he was Jorge Luis Borges… before Borges. …at the start of the 21st century Kircher's taste for trivia, deception and wonder is back.^[20]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[21] His ethnographic collection is in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome.

Bibliography[link]

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

See also[link]

• List of Jesuit scientists
• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
• Library of Sir Thomas Browne

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Cutler, Alan (2003). The Seashell on the Mountaintop. New York: Dutton. 
• Frimmer, Steven (1969). The stone that spoke: and other clues to the decipherment of lost languages. Putnam. 
• Iverson, Erik (1961). The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs. Copenhagen. 
• 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
• MacDonnell, Joseph (1989). Jesuit Geometers. St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources. 
• Musser, Charles (1990). The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08533-7. 
• Woods, Thomas (2005). How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 0-89526-038-7. 

Further reading[link]

• 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. ISBN 978-90-04-20712-7
• 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 978-1-59477-329-7
• 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 978-2-914266-04-8
• Cybèle Varela: Ad Sidera per Athanasius Kircher. Rome, Gangemi, 2008. ISBN 978-88-492-1416-1
• Zielinski, Siegfried. Deep Time of the Media. The MIT Press (April 30, 2008) ISBN 978-0-262-74032-6. 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[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Athanasius Kircher

Works by Kircher[link]

• 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[link]

• Athanasius Kircher, Dude of Wonders Retrieved Mar. 9, 2009.
• Athanasius Kircher Image Gallery Retrieved Mar. 9, 2009.
• Athanasius Kircher's Magnetic Clock Internet Archive.
• Hans-Josef Olszewsky (1992). Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm. ed (in German). Kircher, Athanasius. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 3. Herzberg. cols. 1513–1517. ISBN 3-88309-035-2. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/k/Kircher.shtml. 
• 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[link]

• 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.
• Works by or about Athanasius Kircher in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Naguib Kanawati (born 1941) is an Egyptian Australian Egyptologist and Professor of Egyptology at Macquarie University in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Career[link]

A native of Alexandria, Egypt, with a Master's degree in business administration, Kanawati later emigrated to Sydney, Australia, where he obtained his second Master's degree and Doctorate, both in Egyptology. He subsequently joined the academic staff of the university, as Lecturer in History (1980–1983), and Associate Professor in Egyptology (1984–1990).^[1]

From 1990, Kanawati became Macquarie University's first Professor in Egyptology and holds a Personal Chair in that subject. He was instrumental in the formation of the Rundle Foundation for Egyptian Archaeology in the late 1970s and was the founder, in 1989, of the Australian Centre for Egyptology, which coordinates all Australian excavations in Egypt with the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Kanawati's research interests focus on the Old Kingdom period of Egypt, its burial customs, art history, and socio-political development. He has directed numerous excavations and epigraphic expeditions, at sites including the entire mountain of El-Hawawish (in excess of 800 Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period rock-cut tombs), Quseir El Amarna, El Hagarsa (near Sohag), Deir El Gebrawi, Giza, as well as the Unis and Teti pyramid cemeteries at Saqqara.

Other interests[link]

He is also the current Vice-President (and member for many years) of the Parish Council of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy Church of Australia and New Zealand; Vice-President, Eparchy Pastoral Council; the Chairman of its Aged Care Committee; Chairman of the Melkite Board of Study; and former Chair of its Finance Committee. He was the founding Committee Member of the Holy Saviour Community School, continuing on the committee since 1997. He was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1997.^[2]

Honours[link]

On 1 January 2001 he was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal "for services to Australian society and the humanities in the study of prehistory and archaeology".^[3] In the Queen's Birthday Honours awarded on 11 June 2007 he was awarded the Order of Australia "for service to education through research and the promotion and advancement of the study of Egyptology, and to the community."^[4][5]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Ancient History Documentary Research Centre (Macquarie University)[link]

• Naguib Kanawati, with contributions by Ann McFarlane, Colin Hope, Nabil Charoubim, John Curro, Naguib Maksoud, Reece Scannell, Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor, Gaye Wilson, The Rock Tombs of El-Hawawish: The Cemetery of Akhmim, Volumes I–X. (Sydney, 1980–1992).
• Naguib Kanawati, Ali El-Khouli, Ann McFarlane, & Naguib V. Maksoud, Excavations at Saqqara: North-West of Teti's Pyramid, Volume I (Sydney, 1984). ISBN 0-85837-626-1.
• Ali El-Khouli & Naguib Kanawati, with contributions by Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor, Ann McFarlane, Reece Scannell and H. El-Tayeb, Excavations at Saqqara North-West of Teti's Pyramid, Volume II, (Sydney, 1988).

The Australian Centre for Egyptology: Reports[link]

• (Reports: 1) Ali El-Khouli & Naguib Kanawati, Quseir El-Amarna: The Tombs of Pepy-ankh and Khewen-Wekh, (Sydney, 1989). ISBN 0-85668-508-9 and ISBN 0-85837-663-6.
• (Reports: 2) Ali El-Khouli & Naguib Kanawati, The Old Kingdom Tombs of El-Hammamiya, (Sydney, 1990). ISBN 0-85668-567-4 and ISBN 0-85837-702-0.
• (Reports: 4) Naguib Kanawati, with contributions by Ann McFarlane, Elizabeth Thompson, Nabil Charoubim & Naguib Victor, The Tombs of El-Hagarsa, Volume 1, (Sydney, 1993): ISBN 0-85668-602-6. Later published in 1997 under ISBN 0-85837-805-1.
• (Reports: 5) Naguib Kanawati & Ann McFarlane, with contributions by Nabil Charoubim, Naguib Victor and A. Salama, Deshasha: The Tombs of Inti, Shedu and Others, (Sydney, 1993). ISBN 0-85668-617-4.
• (Reports: 6) Naguib Kanawati, with contributions by E.S. Bailey, N. Charoubim, R.A. David, P. Dyer, R. Elles, R.P. Evans, C. Griffiths, C.W. Griggs, R. Harris, N. Iskander, A. Ivinson, M.C.J. Kuchar, A. McFarlane, M.J. Rowe, R. Shnier, E. Tapp, E. Thompson, L. Turnbull, N. Victor, K. Wildsmith, and S.R. Woodward, The Tombs of El-Hagarsa, Volume 2, (Sydney, 1993). ISBN 0-85668-616-6 and ISBN 1-86408-056-6.
• (Reports: 7) N. Kanawati, with contributions by Ann McFarlane, Elizabeth Thompson, N. Charoubim, and Naguib Victor, The Tombs of El-Hagarsa, Volume 3, (Sydney, 1995). ISBN 1-86408-004-3 (hardcover).
• (Reports: 8) Naguib Kanawati & Ali Hassan, with contributions by Paul Bentley, Alan Cavanagh, Nabil Charoubim, Ann McFarlane, Sameh Shafik, Karin Sowada, Elizabeth Thompson and Naguib Victor, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume I: The Tombs of Nedjet-em-pet, Ka-aper and Others, (Sydney, 1996). ISBN 0-85668-680-8.
• (Reports: 9) Naguib Kanawati & Ali Hassan, with contributions by Alan Cavanagh, Ann McFarlane, Sameh Shafik and Naguib Victor, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume II: The Tomb of Ankhmahor, (Warminster, 1997). ISBN 0-85668-802-9.
• (Reports: 11) Naguib Kanawati & Mahmoud Abder-Raziq, with contributions by Ann McFarlane, Sameh Shafik, Elizabeth Thompson & Naguib Victor, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume III: The Tombs of Neferseshemre and Seankhuiptah, (Warminster, 1998). ISBN 0-85668-804-5.
• (Reports: 13) Naguib Kanawati & Mahmoud Abder-Raziq, with contributions by Ann McFarlane, Sameh Shafik, Elizabeth Thompson & Naguib Victor, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume V: The Tomb of Hesi, (Warminster, 1999). ISBN 0-85668-814-2.
• (Reports: 14) Naguib Kanawati & Mahmoud Abder-Raziq, with contributions by L. Horácková, Ann McFarlane, Sameh Shafik, Mark Spigelman, Eugen Strouhal, Elizabeth Thompson and Naguib Victor, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume VI: The Tomb of Nikauisesi, (Warminster, 2000). ISBN 0-85668-819-3.
• (Reports: 16) Naguib Kanawati, with a Preface by Zahi Hawass and contributions by Ann McFarlane, Sameh Shafik, Elizabeth Thompson & Naguib Victor, Tombs at Giza, Volume I: Kaiemankh (G4561) and Seshemnefer (G4940), (Warminster, 2001). ISBN 0-85668-805-3.
• (Reports: 17) Naguib Kanawati & Mahmoud Abder-Raziq, with contributions by L. Horácková, Ann McFarlane, T.H. Schmidt-Schultz, M. Schultz, Sameh Shafik, Eugen Strouhal, Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor and Roxie Walker, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume VII: The Tombs of Shepsipuptah, Mereri (Merinebti), Hefi and Others, (Warminster, 2001). ISBN 0-85668-806-1.
• (Reports: 18) Naguib Kanawati, Tombs at Giza, Volume II: Seshathetep/Heti (G5150), Nesutnefer (G4970) and Seshemnefer II (G5080), (Warminster, 2002). ISBN 0-85668-815-0.
• (Reports: 19) Naguib Kanawati & Mahmoud Abder-Raziq, with contributions by Ann McFarlane, T.H. Schmidt-Schultz, M. Schultz, Sameh Shafik, Eugen Strouhal, Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor, Roxie Walker and Alex Woods, The Unis Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume II: The Tombs of Iynefert and Ihy (re-used by Idut), (Oxford, 2003). ISBN 0-85668-813-4 and ISBN 0-85668-821-5.
• (Reports: 21) Naguib Kanawati & Mahmoud Abder-Raziq, with contributions by Effy Alexakis, R. Gargour, Kim McCorquodale, Sameh Shafik, Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor & Alex Woods, Mereruka and His Family, Part 1: The Tomb of Meryteti, (Oxford, 2004). ISBN 0-85668-816-9.
• (Reports: 23) Naguib Kanawati, with contributions by Effy Alexakis, Sameh Shafik, M. Momtaz, Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor & Alex Woods, Deir El-Gebrawi, Volume I: The Northern Cliff, (Oxford, 2005). ISBN 0-85668-807-X.
• (Reports: 24) Naguib Kanawati, with chapters by Anne McFarlane & Karin Sowada, and contributions by Effy Alexakis, Sameh Shafik, Elizabeth Thompson, Naguib Victor, & Alex Woods, The Teti Cemetery at Saqqara, Volume VIII: The Tomb of Inumin, (Warminster, 2006). ISBN 0-85668-810-X.
• (Reports: 25) Naguib Kanawati, Deir El-Gebrawi, Volume II: The Southern Cliff, (Aris & Phillips, 2006). ISBN 0-85668-808-8.

The Australian Centre for Egyptology: Studies[link]

• (Studies: 2) Naguib Kanawati, with a Chapter by Ann McFarlane, Akhmim in the Old Kingdom, Part I: Chronology and Administration, (Sydney, 1992). ISBN 0-85668-603-4.

Other Books[link]

• Naguib Kanawati, Egyptian Administration in the Old Kingdom: Evidence on its Economic Decline (Doctoral Thesis, Macquarie Univ, 1974), (June 1977), ISBN 0-85668-102-4.
• Naguib Kanawati, Governmental Reforms in Old Kingdom Egypt, (Warminster, 1980), ISBN 0-85668-168-7.
• Naguib Kanawati, The tomb and its significance in ancient Egypt (Prism archaeological series, 1987). ISBN 977-367-159-3.
• Naguib Kanawati, Sohag in Upper Egypt: A glorious history (Prism archaeological series, 1990), ISBN 977-235-002-5.
• Naguib Kanawati, with photography by Reece Scannell, A Mountain Speaks: The First Australian Excavation in Egypt, (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 1988): ISBN 0-85837-633-4 (hardcover & paperpack). Published later in the United Kingdom as The Mountain Speaks, (Warminster, 1995): ISBN 0-85668-570-4 (paperback).
• Naguib Kanawati, The Tomb and Beyond: Burial Customs of the Egyptian Officials, (Warminster, 2002). ISBN 0-85668-734-0.
• Naguib Kanawati, Conspiracies in the Egyptian Palace: Unis to Pepy I, (Routledge, 2002). ISBN 0-415-27107-X.

Media Reports[link]

• "Setting the Record Straight" - Macquarie University News article, June 2002, regarding Kanawati's work at Giza
• Rewriting the "bible of Egyptology" - Australian Broadcasting Corporation News in Science article, 3 June 2002.
• "Unlocking the secrets of Ancient Egypt" (Macquarie University News article, May 2003, with picture which includes Professor Kanawati).
• "On Site Insight: An Australian archaeological excavation in Egypt" (3 June 2005 announcement of a photographic exhibition covering three seasons of excavations at Saqqara, with image of Professor Kanawati).

External links[link]

• Australian Centre for Egyptology (official website)
• Transcript of Interview with George Negus, 14 June 2004 - ABC website
• Article about ABC Queensland Radio interview 31 May 2006 (includes links to RealMedia & WinMedia audio)
• "Questions for Naguib Kanawati". The Sydney Morning Herald. 13 March 2005. http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Questions-for-Naguib-Kanawati/2005/03/13/1110649037410.html. Retrieved 2007-06-13. 

John Lennox
Born	Northern Ireland
Residence	Oxford, UK
Institutions	University of Wales University of Oxford
Alma mater	University of Cambridge University of Oxford University of Cardiff University of Surrey
Doctoral advisor	James Roseblade
Doctoral students	Howard Smith

John Carson Lennox is Professor of Mathematics^[1] at the University of Oxford, Fellow in Mathematics, Philosophy of Science and Pastoral Advisor at Green Templeton College of Oxford University.

Lennox's Life[link]

Early life[link]

John Lennox was born in Northern Ireland, where he attended The Royal School, Armagh, and went on to become Exhibitioner and Senior Scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where in 1962 he also attended the last lectures of C. S. Lewis on the poet John Donne. Lennox obtained an M.A. and Ph.D. degree at the University of Cambridge. He was awarded a D.Sc. degree in mathematics by the University of Cardiff for his research. Lennox furthermore holds an D.Phil. degree from the University of Oxford and an M.A. degree in bioethics at the University of Surrey.^[2]

Career[link]

Lennox has been part of numerous public debates defending the Christian faith, including debates with Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Singer. The debate in 2007 against atheist Richard Dawkins, on the topic of Dawkins' book The God Delusion, was broadcast to millions worldwide and was described by the Wall Street Journal as "a revelation: in Alabama, a civil debate over God's existence".

Upon completing his doctorate, Lennox moved to Cardiff, Wales, becoming a reader in Mathematics at the University of Wales, Cardiff. During his 29 years in Cardiff he spent a year at each of the universities of Würzburg, Freiburg (as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow) and Vienna and has lectured extensively in both Eastern and Western Europe, Russia and North America on mathematics, apologetics and the exposition of Scripture. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles on mathematics and co-authored two Oxford Mathematical Monographs and has worked as a translator of Russian mathematics.

Lennox also teaches science and religion in the University of Oxford. He is the author of a number of books on the relations of science, religion and ethics, the most recent of which are: Informetika (2001),^[3] Hat die Wissenschaft Gott begraben? (Has Science Buried God?) (2002),^[4] Worldview (2004) with D. W. Gooding (3 volumes in Russian and Ukrainian). His most recent book is God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway? (2011). He has spoken in many different countries, in conferences and as an academic fellow including numerous trips to the former Soviet Union. On March 14 2012, he presented an edition of the Lent Talks for BBC Radio Four.

Debates[link]

Lennox (left) debating religion with Christopher Hitchens in Alabama

Lennox is a Christian academic and has participated in a number of public debates against individuals including Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Michael Shermer.

• On 3 October 2007, Lennox debated with Richard Dawkins at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in Birmingham, Alabama on Dawkins' views expressed in his book, The God Delusion.^[5][6][7]
• Professors Lennox and Dawkins had a follow-up discussion in April 2008 at Trinity College, Oxford to expand upon topics left undeveloped during The God Delusion Debate.^[8][9]
• On 9 August 2008, Lennox debated with Christopher Hitchens at the Edinburgh International Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland on the question of whether or not Europe should jettison its religious past and welcome the "New Atheism."^[10][11]
• On 23 August 2008, Lennox debated with Michael Shermer at the Wesley Conference Centre in Sydney, Australia on the existence of God.^[12][13]
• On 21 October 2008, Lennox debated with Richard Dawkins for the second time at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the site of the 1860 Oxford evolution debate between Thomas Henry Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce. The debate was titled "Has Science Buried God?" and centred around that question.^[14][15][16] The Spectator called the event "Huxley-Wilberforce, Round Two."^[17]
• On 3 March 2009, Lennox debated with Christopher Hitchens for the second time at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama on the question "Is God Great?" The debate addressed the validity of some of Hitchens' claims in his book God is Not Great.^[18][19][20]

Personal life[link]

Lennox speaks English, Russian, French, German and Spanish. He is married to Sally and has three children and five grandchildren.^[21] He has a brother named Gilbert Lennox, an elder in Glennabbey Church, Glengormley.^[22] The recording artist Kristyn Getty is John's niece, being Gilbert's daughter.

Works[link]

• Subnormal subgroups of groups, John C. Lennox and Stewart E. Stonehewer. Oxford : Clarendon, 1987. ISBN 0-19-853552-X / ISBN 978-0-19-853552-2
• Christentum definitiv!: Der Unterschied zwischen christlicher Botschaft und Christenheit, John C. Lennox & David Gooding, Germany, Jota publikationen (2. Februar 2004) | 129 p | ISBN 3-935707-17-7
• The Theory of Infinite Soluble Groups, John C. Lennox, University of Oxford, and Derek J. S. Robinson, University of Illinois, 2004 | 458 p | Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-19-850728-3 / ISBN 978-0-19-850728-4
• Hat die Wissenschaft Gott begraben. Eine kritische Analyse moderner Denkvoraussetzungen, John C. Lennox, Hann – Germany, Brockhaus, (31 October 2007) | 144 p | ISBN 3-417-24358-0
• God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, John C. Lennox, Lion UK, Updated edition (1 September 2009)| 224 p | ISBN 0-7459-5371-9
• Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science, John C. Lennox, Zondervan (9 August 2011) | 192p | ISBN 0-310-49217-3
• God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway?, John C. Lennox, Lion UK, 1st edition (1 September 2011) | 96 p | ISBN 0-7459-5549-5
• Gunning for God: A Critique of the New Atheism, John C. Lennox, Lion UK, 1st edition (1 October 2011) | 248 p | ISBN 0-7459-5322-0

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (April 2012)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Lennox

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Lennox

• John Lennox's official website
• The Feed Trust – this has some of his Scripture exposition resources
• Fixed Point Foundation – features both debates and the Trinity College conversation with Richard Dawkins as well as both debates with Christopher Hitchens
• Interview with John Lennox by Tim Bearder, BBC Radio Oxford, 2008-10-16.
• Premier Christian Radio Radio debate on "Are we alone in the Universe?"