Ammon

Ammon

, in the Bible

Ammon (ămˈən), in the Bible, people living E of the Dead Sea. Their capital was Rabbath-Ammon, the present-day Amman (Jordan). Their god was Milcom, to whom Solomon built an altar. A Semitic people, they flourished from the 13th cent. B.C. to the 8th cent. B.C. and were then absorbed by the Arabs. Excavations in Jordan show that they had a highly developed kingdom. They were hostile to the Hebrews, to whom they were related. The ancestor for whom they were named was Lot's son Ben-Ammi.

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Ammon

 

a small state founded east of Palestine in the 14th-13th centuries B.C. by a Semitic people, the Ammonites, who had apparently come there from Arabia.

The capital was Rabbath Ammon (called Philadelphia in Greek, now Amman, capital of Jordan). Ammon fought stubbornly for the possession of the fertile land of Gilead against the Amorites (14th—13th centuries B.C.) and later against the Israelites and Judeans. In the tenth century Ammon was conquered by David, but at the end of that century it regained its independence; in the eighth and seventh centuries Ammon was subject to the Assyrian kings. From the end of the sixth century to the fourth century, Ammon was under the rule of the Persians, in the third century of the Ptolemies, in the second century of the Seleucids, and from 63 B.C. of Rome (but maintaining its autonomy under Rome). Remarkable monuments of ancient architecture, such as thermae, porticoes, and theaters, have been preserved from the Roman period.

D. G. REDER

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ammon

Old Testament the ancestor of the Ammonites

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005