period of disorder within Poland. He cared more for pleasure than affairs of state and left the administration of Saxony and Poland to his chief adviser, Heinrich von Bruhl (1700-1763), and the powerful Czartoryski family. He gave Saxon support to Austria in the War of the Austrian Suc¬ cession and the Seven Years' War.
auk In general, any of 22 species of diving birds (family Alcidae), espe¬ cially the little auk and the razorbill, or razor-billed auk. Auks are 6-16 in. (15—40 cm) long, with short wings and legs and webbed feet. They occur only in Arctic, subarctic, and temperate regions (with a few species south to Baja California). Auks nest colonially on cliff ledges or in rock crevices or burrows near the sea; many spend the winter far from land. They feed on fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and plankton. True auks are black and white and stand erect on land. See also great auk.
aulos Vo-los\ Single- or double-reed pipe usually played in pairs, par¬ ticularly in ancient Greece. During the Classical period the pipes were of equal length, each with three or four finger holes. The principal wind instrument of most ancient Middle Eastern peoples, it existed in Europe up to the early Middle Ages, often as a single pipe with more finger holes.
Its quavering sound, described by Plato, was classically associated with the rites of Dionysus.
AUM Shinrikyo Vaum-shin-'rik- yo\ Japanese "AUM Supreme Truth" Japanese new religious movement founded by Asahara Shoko (b. 1955 as Matsumoto Chi- zuo) in 1987. It contained elements of Hinduism and Buddhism and was founded on the millenarian expecta¬ tion of a series of disasters that would bring an end to this world and inaugurate a new cosmic cycle. In 1995 its members released nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 people and injuring some 5,500. The group has been linked with other nerve-gas incidents and violent crimes. It claimed some 50,000 members, mostly in Russia, at the time of the gas attack. Membership collapsed in the wake of the attack, but it had grown to more than 1,500 members by the early 21st century. The group changed its name to Aleph in 2000. More than 10 AUM members were sentenced to death for their involvement in the gassing incident, including Asahara, who in 2004 was found guilty of masterminding the attack.
Aung San V6q-'san\ (b. 1914?, Natmauk, Burma—d. July 19, 1947, Rangoon) Nationalist leader of Burma (Myanmar). He led a student strike in 1936 and became secretary-general of a nationalist group in 1939. He accepted Japanese aid in raising a military force in Burma that helped the Japanese in their 1942 invasion. However, he came to doubt that the Japa¬ nese would ever allow Burma to become independent and grew displeased with their treatment of Burmese forces, and in 1945 he switched to the Allied cause. After the war, he effectively became prime minister and negotiated Burma’s independence, which was agreed on in 1947; he was assassinated before independence was achieved in 1948.
Aung San Suu Kyi Vorj-'san-'sii-'cheX (b. June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma) Opposition leader in Burma (Myanmar). Daughter of nationalist leader Aung San, she studied in Burma and India and at the University of Oxford. She lived quietly in Britain until, returning to Myanmar in 1988, she was moved by the brutality of U Ne Win’s military regime to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights. The 1990 electoral victory of her National League for Democracy was ignored by Ne Win’s government, and she was held under house arrest from 1989 to 1995. She subsequently continued her opposition activities and was sub¬ ject to varying degrees of government harrassment, including another period of house arrest in 2000-02. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace.
Aurangzeb \ 1 au-r3q-'zeb\ orig. Muhi al-DTn Muhammad (b. Nov. 3, 1618, Dhod, Malwa, India—d. March 3, 1707) Last of the great Mughal emperors of India (r. 1658-1707). He was the third son of the emperor Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, for whom the Taj Mahal was built. After distin-
Auloi player with phorbeia and dancer with krotala, detail from a kylix found at Vulci, Italy, signed by Epictetus, c. 520-510 bc; in the British Museum, London.
COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
132 I Aurelian ► Austen
guishing himself early in life with his military and administrative ability, he fought his eldest brother for the right of succession and had several other rival relatives (including a son) executed. During the first half of his reign, he proved to be a capable Mus¬ lim monarch of a mixed Hindu- Muslim empire; he was disliked for his ruthlessness but respected. From c. 1680 his devout religious side came to dominate; he excluded Hin¬ dus from public office and destroyed their temples and schools, became embroiled in fruitless warfare with the Marathas in South India, and executed the Sikh Guru Tegh Baha¬ dur (r. 1664-75), starting a Sikh- Muslim feud that has continued to the present.
Aurelian \o-'ra-le-3n\ Latin Lucius Domitius Aurelianus
(b. c. 215—d. 275, near Byzantium)
Roman emperor ad 270-75. Prob¬ ably from the Balkans, he became emperor after Claudius II’s death and the brief reign of Claudius’s brother. He reunited the empire and restored Roman power in Europe, turning back invaders and quelling revolts, securing provinces in the east and defeating the Germans to the north, for which he took the title restitutor orbis (“restorer of the world”). He built a new wall around Rome and increased food distribu¬ tion to the poor, but his monetary and religious reforms failed. While marching to Persia, he was slain by a group of officers who mistakenly believed they had been marked for execution.
Aurelius, Marcus See Marcus Aurelius
Aurgelmir Vaur-gsl-.mhA or Ymir Vi-mir\ In Norse mythology, the first being, a giant created from the drops of water that formed when the ice of Niflheim met the heat of Muspelheim. He was the father of all giants; a male and female grew under his arm and his legs produced a six-headed son, whom the cow Audumla nursed. Audumla licked salty frost from stones, which she shaped into the man Buri, grandfather of Odin and his brothers. The gods killed Aurgelmir and put his body into the void, where his flesh became the earth, his blood the seas, his bones mountains, his teeth stones, his skull the sky, and his brains the clouds. His eyelashes (or eyebrows) became the fence around Midgard, home of mankind.
Aurignacian culture \,6r-en-'ya-sh9n\ Stone-tool industry and artis¬ tic tradition of Upper Paleolithic Europe, named after the village of Aurignac in southern France where the tradition was first identified. The Aurignacian period dates to 35,GOO- 15,000 bc. Its tools included scrap¬ ers, burins (which made the engraving possible), and blades.
Points and awls were fashioned from bones and antlers. Aurignacian art represents the first complete artistic tradition, moving from simple engravings of animal forms on small rocks to finer pieces of carved bone and ivory to highly stylized clay figurines of pregnant women (the so-called “Venus figures,” presumably fertility figures). By the end of the Aurignacian, hundreds of engravings, reliefs, and paintings had been executed on the walls and ceilings of limestone caves in western Europe, most famously Lascaux Grotto.
aurochs \'aur-,aks\ or auroch Extinct wild ox ( Bos primigenius) of Europe, the species from which cattle are probably descended. The
aurochs survived in central Poland until 1627. It was black, stood 6 ft (1.8 m) high at the shoulder, and had spreading, forward-curving horns. Some German breeders claim to have re-created this race since 1945, but their animals are smaller and probably lack the aurochs’s genetic constitution. The name has sometimes been wrongly applied to the European bison.
Aurora Roman goddess of dawn. Her Greek counterpart was Eos. Hesiod described her as the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. She was the sister of Helios, the sun, and Selene, the moon. By the Titan Astraeus, she became the mother of the winds and of the evening star. In Greek mythology she was also represented as the lover of the hunters Cephalus and Orion.