Amomitm (ufiwfiov). This word is only found in Rev. xviii, 13 (between "cinnamon" and "odors"), and is even there omitted in the received text. It de- noted an odoriferous plant or seed, used in preparing precious ointment. It probably differed from the mod- ern amomum of the druggists (Pinny Cyclopaedia, s. v.), tint the exact species is not known. It was of various qualities, growing in Armenia and Media, and also in Pontus. with seeds in clusters like grapes (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii, 28 ; Theophrastus, Hist. Plant, ix, 7).
A'mon ( IIcli. Amon', 7"N:, builder [the deriv. of Ho. 3 is prob. different]), the name of three men and a deity.
1. (Sept. 'AfifUJV and 'l'///;n v. r. Sf/n'/o.) The gov- ernor of the city of Samaria in the time of Ahab, to
whose custody the prophet Micaiah was delivered (1 Kings xxii, 20 ; 2 Chron. xviii, 25), B.C. 895.
2. (Sept. 'A/mov v. r. Afiiog.) The son of Manasseh (by Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah), and fifteenth separate king of Judah, B.C. 642-640. He appears to have derived little benefit from the in- structive example which the sin, punishment, and re- pentance of his father offered ; for he restored idolatry, and again set up the images which Manasseh had cast down. To Anion's reign we must refer the terrible picture which the prophet Zephaniah gives of the moral and religious state of Jerusalem ; idolatry supported by priests and prophets (i, 4; iii, 4), the poor ruthless- ly oppressed (iii, 3), and shameless indifference to evil (iii, 11). He was assassinated in a court conspiracy; but the people put the regicides to death, and raised to the throne his son Josiah, then but eight years old (2 Kings xxi, 18-26 ; 2 Chron. xxxiii, 20-25). He is mentioned among the ancestors of Christ ('A/tup, Matt, i, 10 ; comp. 1 Chron. iii, 14 ; Jer. i, 2 ; xxv, 3 ; Zeph.
| i, 1). See Judah, Kingdom of.
3. (Sept. 'Appwv.) Ammon, an Egyptian and Lib- yan god, in whom the classical writers unanimously recognise their own Zeus and Jupiter (Ajuoi'i-, Herod, ii, 42 ; "Apuwv, Diod. Sic. i, 13). The primitive seat of his worship appears to have been at Meroe, from which it descended to Thebes, and thence, according to Herodotus (ii, 54), was transmitted to the oasis of Siwah and to Dodona ; in all which places there were celebrated oracles of this god (Plut. Isid. c. 9; Alex. c. 72; Arnolius, vi, 12; Justin, xi, 11; Strabo, i, 49 sq. ; xvii, 814). His chief temple and oracle in Egypt, however, were at Thebes, a city peculiarly consecrated to him, and which is probably meant by the No and No-Amon of the prophets, the Diospolis of the Greeks. He is generally represented on Egyptian monuments
Image of Amnion. From the Egyptian Monuments.
by the seated figure of a man with a ram's head, or by that of an entire ram, and of a blue color (Wilkinson, 2 ser. i, 243 sq.). In honor of him, the inhabitants of the Thebaid abstained from the flesh of sheep, but they annually sacrificed a ram to him and dressed his im- age in the hide. A religious reason for that ceremony is assigned by Herodotus (ii, 42); but Diodorus (iii, 72) ascribes his wearing horns to a more trivial cause. There appears to be no account of the manner in which his oracular responses were given ; but as a sculpture at Karnak, which Creuzer (Symbol, i, 507) has copied from the Description de VEgypte, represents his portable tabernacle mounted on a boat and borne on the shoul- ders of forty priests, it may be conjectured, from the resemblance between several features of that repre- sentation and the description of the oracle of Jupiter Amnion in Diodorus, xvii, 50, that his responses were communicated by some indication during the solemn transportation of his tabernacle. (See Smith's Dirt. of Class. Bioff. s. v. Amnion.) That the name of this god really occurs in the passage " Behold, I will pun-
AMORITE
203
AMORITE
ish the multitude (literally, Amori) of No" (Jer. xlvi, 25), is a view favored by the context and all internal grounds ; but in the parallel passage, Ezek. xxx, 15, the equivalent hamon, "|150i"I, is employed. Comp. also Ezek. xxx, 4, 10, for the use of the latter word with reference to Egypt. These cases, or at least the for- mer two, seem therefore to be instances of paronomasia (comp. Isa. xxx, 7; lxv, 11, 12). It is also undoubt- edly referred to in the name No-Am mon [see No], given to Thebes (Nahum iii, 8, where the English text translates "populous No"). The etymology of the name is obscure. Eustathius (ad Dionys. Perieg. p. 125, ed. Bernhardy) says that, according to some, the word means shepherd. Jablonski (Panth. sEggpt. i, 181) proposed an etymology by which it would signify producing light ; and Champollion originally regarded it as meaning glory (Egypte sous les Pharaons, i, 217), but, in his latest interpretation (after Manetho in ITut ), assigned it the sense of hidden. The name accompa- nying the above figure on the monuments is written Am?i, more fully Amn-Re, i. e. "Amon-Sun" (Gese- nius, Thcs. Heb. p. 115). Macrobius asserts (Satumal. i, 21) that the Libyans adored the sun under the form of Amnion ; and he points to the ram's horns as evi- dence of a connection with the zodiacal sign Aries (Muller, Archaol p. 276; Pauly, Real-Encgcl. i, 407 sq.) ; but this has been disputed (Jomard, Descr. de VEgypte ; Bahr, Symbolik d. Mos. Cultus, ii, 296, 641), although it would seem unsuccessfully (Creuzer, Sym- bolik, ii, 205 ; Schmidt, Be Zodiaci origine sEg. p. 33, in his Opusc. quibus res ^Eg. illustrantur, Carolsr. 1765). — Kitto, s. v. See Egypt ; Hieroglyphics.