Ammon

a people; the son of my people

or HAMMON, or JUPITER-AMMON, an epithet given to Jupiter in Lybia, where was a celebrated temple of that deity under the denomination of Jupiter Ammon, which was visited by Alexander the Great. The word _Amoun_, which imports “shining,” according to Jablonski, denoted the effects produced by the sun on attaining the equator, such as the increase of the days; a more splendid light; and, above all, the fortunate presage of the inundation of the Nile, and its consequent abundance. Ammon is by others derived from Ham, the son of Noah, who first peopled Egypt and Lybia, after the flood; and, when idolatry began to gain ground soon after this period, became the chief deity of those two countries, in which his descendants continued. A temple, it is said, was built to his honour, in the midst of the sandy deserts of Lybia, upon a spot of good ground, about two leagues broad, which formed a kind of island or oasis in a sea of sand. He was esteemed the Zeus of Greece, and the Jupiter of Latium, as well as the Ammon of the Egyptians. In process of time, these two names were joined; and he was called Jupiter Ammon. For this reason the city of Ammon, No-ammon, or the city of Ham, was called by the Greeks Diospolis, or the city of Jupiter. Plutarch says, that of all the Egyptian deities which seemed to have any correspondence with the Zeus of Greece, Amon or Ammon was the most peculiar and appropriate. From Egypt his name and worship were brought into Greece; as indeed were almost all the names of all the deities that were there worshipped. Jupiter Ammon, or the Egyptian Jupiter, was usually represented under the figure of a ram; though in some medals he appears of a human shape, having only two ram’s horns growing out beneath his ears. The Egyptians, says Proclus, in the Timæus of Plato, had a singular veneration for the ram, because the image of Ammon bore its head, and because this first sign of the zodiac was the presage of the fruits of the earth. Eusebius adds, that this symbol marked the conjunction of the sun and moon in the sign of the ram. 2. AMMON, or BEN-AMMI, the son of Lot, by his youngest daughter, Gen. xix, 38. He was the father of the Ammonites, and dwelt on the east side of the Dead Sea, in the mountains of Gilead.