Why is Zeus Ammon not just Ammon?

[casata137ec]

Morning all. I posed this question to Jochen due to his incredible knowledge of ancient deities and myths...and I wish I remembered how I worded it! lol Basically, I asked why non-greek deities (such as Ammon) got tagged with the honorific (ex: Zeus-Ammon).

His response:

"...Cultural historical we know the phenomena that original different local deities were inserted, subsummed, by a bigger cultural 'victorious' deity and so became special characteristics of the bigger, more comprehensiv deity, so-called hypostaseis, a kind of devaluation. Many of Zeus- and Apollo-hypostaseis in Asia minor belong to this kind of phenomenon.

The case of Zeus-Ammon iis a bit different. Here we have the highest deities of two different great cultures. The ancients have the conception that Zeus and Ammon were only two different names of the same deity. This idea was widely spread especially when the Romans while conquering the ancient world came across so many new deities of the defeated people. Usually the new deities were named after Roman gods, sometimes with a additional attribute.

Your question aims directly into the heart of the history of ancient religion. I think this problem is worth to be discussed in an own thread. I'm curious to read the opinion of Pat Lawrence about this."

I guess my question has mutated a bit as well. Did the ancients of the area (Egypt in this case) see the depiction of the horned Ammon as a variant of Zeus or was he still Amun to them? Did they refer to him a Zeus-Ammon? On the other hand, did the greek and romans who later conquered Egypt see him as Zeus who suddenly grew horns and had nothing really to do with storms or lightning...or "that local deity", Ammon? Further, did we as modern collectors simply call him Z-A to make it easier on us to catagorize? It would seem to me that if someone conqured the US and started calling Washington's bust on a quarter dollar, let's say...Mao-Washington, I as a local would know it was not Mao, but simply Washington...

Chris

[slokind]

Just consider the images, though.
When the ram's horns of Ammon are put on a wavy bearded Zeus kind of head, what should we call the image but Zeus-Ammon?
It probably made Ptolemaic cults seem more reasonable both to Greeks living in Egypt and to Egyptians themselves.  As for the syncretism, it also was due to an increasing sense of urgency to show that different peoples' worships all acknowledged godhead, and both Zeus and Ammon were sky gods.
Also, the Greeks (who were the ones mainly writing about such questions) admired Egypt and were eager to admit the legitimacy of Egyptian religion.
Pat L.

[Randygeki(h2)]

I always just assumed it was syncretism, but could it have been just a symbol off acceptance of both religions coexisting together?

[mihali84]

Consider the depiction of Alexander the Great on the coinage of Lysimachos, wearing the horn of Ammon.  Did the ancients begin calling him Alexander-Ammon in their worship of him?

Being the self proclaimed son of Ammon, and of Zeus, perhaps the Greeks found it easier to join the two gods as one, keeping both names.  I wonder if the cult worship of Alexander always depicted him as wearing the horn, and worshiped him as Alexander-Ammon.

One has to admit that naming the god Zeus-Ammon was a great political, social, and religious move bringing the Greek and Egyptian cultures together. 

I am curious to know when the name Zeus-Ammon was first used.  It would seem to me that Ptolemy I was the first to use the term.

[Jay GT4]

My understanding is that Greeks and Romans detested animal headed gods so by adding a Zeus like head with only the horn made it easier to swallow back home but had enough of the original to appease the locals.

[Robert_Brenchley]

No doubt there was an element of absorbtion into Greek culture, as syncretism was part of the overall process of Hellenisation. So Apis and Osiris are fused into Serapis, a clearly Hellenistic god, whose cult spread the length of the Mediterranean, and is represented in Britain by an inscription from York. A dedication to Jupiter Serapis from Kirkby Thore presumably represents another stage of syncretism.

[Jochen]

In the Mythology Thread is a short article about Zeus-Ammon https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.125

Best regards

[Vinnie B]

I saw your question while scrolling the internet maybe I can help a bit.

EGYPTIAN VIEW: The Ammon God of ancient Libya seemed to be adopted by Egypt when Libya assisted Egypt's Pharaoh to power. The Pharaoh built a statue in homage to the God. It is believed that the Egyptian city of Thebes had a God called Amun (Amen) whom they associated Ammon with.
However, later on the middle and newer Egyptian kingdoms emerged and grew and so did their God Ra (Re). Later when the older and new kingdoms merged their Gods also merged or Ra subsumed Amun resulting in Amun-Ra and replaced Ra as the head of all of the Egyptian Gods.
Ra was the sun god (if you look up now in the sky you will still see Ra the sun?). At night Ra will be swallowed at the horizon by another Goddess Nut the sky Goddess. He will traverse through the underworld and at this time is when he will have horns. In the morning she (the blue sky will birth him out again hence morning. So Amun-Ra had horns at some point but was not depicted with them.

LIBYAN VIEW: So we turn to the Lybian God Ammon which was depicted with horns. Lybia was controlled by the Phenicians. He may have been related to Ba'al Hammon, a god of the Semitic peoples (e.g., the Phoenicians) who conquered Lybia. The worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage.

GREEK VIEW: The Greeks attributed the foundation of famous Greek City of Thebes to Cadmus, a Phoenician king from Tyre (now in Lebanon miles from Libya) which would have been overseeing Libya. Cadmus was the brother of Queen Europa. Cadmus was famous for teaching the Phoenician alphabet and building the Acropolis, which was named the Cadmeia in his honor and was an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural center. Phoenicians were ancient before the Greeks if Greece was later founded by Phonecians. Phoenites means purple people (sellers of purple clothing etc). The phoenicians had a trade route that led all the way back to Greece from Tyre (Lebannon) along the coast. The Greeks thought Amun he was an Egyptian manifestation of their god Zeus. Even Alexander the Great thought it worthwhile consulting the oracle of Amun. If the Pheonicians gave Libya and Greece their God's then there is some relation. Hence the reason either Alexander or someone would merge the two gods.

ANOTHER VIEW: these historians Plutarch, Curtius, Justin, and Diodorus all report on Alexander's visit to the temple of Ammon in the Siwah oasis in the Lybia deasert after he conquered Egypt. that Alexander was told that Ammon, not Philip, was his true father. With slight variations, they also report that Alexander was told he would conquer the world and never be defeated. Alexander was still faced with Darius and the Persian Empire. It may have been at that time when his face was printed with horns.  AMMON is depicted as a man with 2 goat horns.

BIBLICAL VIEW: Daniel was told a ram with two horns (Greece) will defeat the persians. hope I did not confuse you too much.

[Kevin D]

John Melville-Jones might have something on this (I am away from my copy of his book at this time).

The 'horn' seems to also have had considerable traction outside of Egypt, judging by the coins of Demetrios Poliorketes struck at Pella and Amphipolis.