Ancient Egypt ) 500 km west of
Memphis, the capital of
ancient Egypt, the oasis was also called Ammon; they called god of the oracle "Ammon of Siwa, lord of good counsel". The fact that the site was hard to reach, must have contributed to the feeling that an oracle from Ammon was something special - and therefore reliable. After the fall of the New Kingdom, Siwa was certainly independent, and it is no strange idea that the
Libyan kings of the
Twenty-Second and
Twenty-Third Dynasties were somehow related to the rulers of Siwa. It finally became a fully integrated part of Egypt after the domestication of the
dromedary had made desert travel easier, for example to Egypt in the east, the
Cyrenaica in the northwest and the
Nasamones in the west. Among the oasis' exports was
salt.
Carthage The worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the
punic colony of Carthage. His supremacy among the Carthaginian gods is believed to date from the 8th century BC after relations between Carthage and
Tyre were broken off at the time of the
Battle of Himera (480 BC). After the 5th century Tanit soon eclipsed the more established cult of
Ba'al Hammon was frequently listed before him on the monuments. Ba'al Hammon was known as the Chief of the pantheon of Carthage and the deity that made vegetation grow; as with most deities of Carthage, he was seemingly propitiated with
child sacrifice, likely in times of strife or crisis, or only by elites, perhaps for the good of the whole community. This practice was recorded by Greeks and Romans, but dismissed as propaganda by modern scholars, until archeologists unearthed urns containing the cremated remains of infants in places of ritual sacrifice. Some scholars believe this confirms the accounts of child sacrifice, while others insist these are the remains of children who died young. He has been identified with a solar deity, although
Yigael Yadin thought him to be a moon god.
Edward Lipiński identifies him with the god
Dagon. In Carthage and North Africa, Baʿal Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was also worshiped as the
horned deity Baʿal Qarnaim "Lord of the Two Horns" in an open-air sanctuary at
Jebel Boukornine ("the two-horned hill") across the bay from Carthage, in
Tunisia. The
interpretatio graeca identified him with the Titan
Cronus. In
ancient Rome, he was identified with
Saturn, and the cultural exchange between Rome and Carthage as a result of the
Second Punic War may have influenced the development of the festival of
Saturnalia. . Attributes of his Romanized form as an African Saturn indicate that Hammon (
Amunus in
Philo's work) was a fertility god.
Numidia Ba'al Hammon synthesized with the Italic god Saturnus became the supreme deity of Roman Africa, including
Numidia, representing agriculture, cosmic order, and life forces, As
dominus,
deus,
sanctus, and
aeternus, Saturn/Ba'al Hammon exercised absolute cosmic and temporal authority—master of the world, sky, and life cycles. The divine role resonated with Numidian agrarian and pastoral concerns, blending local traditions and Punic influences long before Romanization burner depicting Ba'al-Hamon, 2nd century BC == Early history ==