The following is a chapter (by the same name) in the book 'The Bible Betrayed.' It presents 'Ammon' a well-known city-state in that existed in the core biblical arena. It may be seen that by using Ancient World Textual Sources in concurrence, one can easily identify and locate its current whereabouts.

“We can cross the river... but where are we to land?” This then was the General’s main concern. The Persian Monarch Cambyses had sat silently listening to the General’s report. Saba, the royal seat of Ammon, it appears, was heavily fortified. He expected that of course. However, what intrigued him was the brilliant way they had harnessed the rivers, the Astapus, the Astaboras and the Nile, to create an impregnable fortress. Ramparts, it appears, were cunningly built right up to the edge of the river. This engineering detail, a seemingly minor one to the untrained eye, was what had stumped the General.

Ammon would certainly be a hard nut to crack. Cambyses considered leaving it alone. It would mean leaving a pocket of resistance behind his back, which though not desirable, was at this point, acceptable. But then he recalled the Oracle of Ammon. It was situated on this confounded island kingdom and had the power to rally all Ethiopia against him. It would be foolish to let this war-mongering Oracle stand. After a few more minutes of deliberation, he made up his mind and instructed, “Take fifty thousand soldiers from the main body of the army and attack the island citadel.” The General, who knew his warfare and was indeed angling for more troops, was visibly relieved. It was exactly what he wanted to hear. “And do me a favor,” continued the great Cambyses, still in a dark and pensive mood. “Yes, my lord?” queried the General with his eyes still carefully averted. “Burn the Oracle of Ammon!”

Ammon, the same oracle to which Alexander the Great made a pilgrimage to enquire of his fate and to find out if he was the son of a God. However, you do not have to be an historian to be familiar with Ammon. The Bible cries itself hoarse denouncing this very Ammon, where the Oracle of Ammon, steadily eroded the God of the Old Testament’s hold on the Israelites.

Where then was this Ammon? Biblical scholars, if asked, would readily give you an answer. Err, two actually. Two Ammons, that is to say. And, while you look askance, the scholar with a spade in his hands will beam happily and oblige you with an explanation. “One is near Siwa in modern-day Egypt and very nicely holding up the Egypt reconstruction for the Egyptologist. The other, he would continue in his best scholar’s voice heavily embellished with jargons, is in the Middle East, better known as Amman, the capital of Jordan and planted there by us biblical scholars to complete the biblical reconstruction. You see, we needed it here and they needed it there, so... ” But before he can establish the cornerstones of his quirky logic, you promptly jump off the nearest ledge. On the way down you wonder how scholars can blithely duplicate a place just to fill holes in their reconstruction.

Surely, our ancient world friends are more conscientious. Let us see if they can help resolve the Ammon enigma. Consider the following extract:

Here you come upon a smooth and level plain, where the Nile flows in two branches, round an island called Tachompso. The country above Elephantine is inhabited by the Ethiopians, who possess one-half of this island, the Egyptians occupying the other. [Herodotus 2.29]

We have already established that Tachompso was a tract of land amidst rivers or a river island, and as such, very highly rated during ancient times. No rogue army could gallop right into the town square at unearthly hours, to disturb your sleep. They would first have to cross any one of the rivers that surrounded the island. And, while they were struggling to do so, the inhabitants of the river island could have a hearty breakfast and decide over tea exactly what countermeasures to take—if that is, the enemy was still at it.

It is hardly surprising therefore to learn from Herodotus that the island was jointly occupied. Half the island belonged to the Ethiopians and the other half belonged to the Egyptians, presumably an immigrant colony. It short, two separate kingdoms co-existed on this cozy ‘land amidst the river,’ on the Plain of Ethiopia.

Moving on, in another part of his history, Herodotus provides the following information:

The Ammonians, who are a joint colony of Egyptians and Ethiopians, speaking a language between the two; hence also, in my opinion, the latter people took their name of Ammonians, since the Egyptian name for Jupiter is Amun.[Herodotus 2.42]

From this second extract, it appears that Ammon too comprised of a ‘joint colony of Ethiopians and Egyptians.’ Now, we already have Tachompso described as such and therefore we may tentatively assume that Ammon and Tachompso were in some way connected.

Moving on to another extract from Herodotus, we find Ammon under attack. This extract documents Cambyses’ campaign against the Ethiopians, the same that I have dramatized above. Here it is:

At Thebes, which he (Cambyses) passed through on his way, he detached from his main body some fifty thousand men and sent them against the Ammonians with orders to carry the people into captivity and burn the oracle of Jupiter. Meanwhile he himself went on with the rest of his forces against the Ethiopians. [Herodotus 3.25]

It appears that Ammon was heavily fortified. Cambyses had to detach fifty thousand men from the main army to overthrow the Ammonians. An Oracle of Jupiter too existed in Ammon. Since this bit of information is not immediately of use to us, let us file it away for later use.

First we have the joint colony similarity, that suggests that Ammon was in some way connected to the island Tachompso. In addition, now we have Cambyses sending a large contingency of soldiers to capture Ammon, which suggests that Ammon was somehow heavily fortified. This once again suggests the island Tachompso. Remember that the island Tachompso too was secured by rivers on all sides and was very difficult to access. In other words, apart from the joint colony similarity, we now have ‘the heavy fortification,’ to strengthen our assumption that Ammon and Tachompso were intrinsically connected. Let us see if we can get some reference to the river-fortification of Ammon, to make this a near certainty. 

Incredibly, a fortified island that appears to be Ammon is mentioned in Josephus’ text. Fortunately, the extract also mentions the campaign that Cambyses ordered against Ammon. He records:

At length they retired to Saba, which was a royal city of Ethiopia, which Cambyses afterwards named Mero, after the name of his own sister. The place was to be besieged with very great difficulty, since it was both encompassed by the Nile quite round and the other rivers, Astapus and Astaboras, made it a very difficult thing for such as attempted to pass over them; for the city was situate in a retired place and was inhabited after the manner of an island, being encompassed with a strong wall and having the rivers to guard them from their enemies and having great ramparts between the wall and the rivers. [Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 2.10]

Here indeed is mention of a well-fortified island in the heart of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian royal city upon it was called Saba, which was later renamed Meroe. Saba or Meroe was located on an island formed by the twin tributaries Astaboras and Astapus and therefore very difficult to breach. Apart from the river barriers, the city appeared to have had high ramparts all around that made it nearly impossible to defeat. Cambyses apparently had a difficult time capturing it.

Let us now scurry back to our drawing table and add these interesting new scraps of information to our emerging picture. We have Tachompso and Saba-Meroe, both in Ethiopia, documented as difficult to breech, heavily fortified, ‘river island kingdoms.’ The two rivers, Astaboras and Astapus, the tributaries of the Nile and the Nile itself, appeared to have encompassed Saba-Meroe as well as Tachompso.

Making an intelligent assessment of all the above information, we get: on the Plain of Ethiopia, the river Nile splits into two, forming twin tributaries named Astaboras and Astapus. The river island thus formed was called Tachompso.

Now we know that Tachompso was jointly occupied. One-half was occupied by Ethiopians and the other by Egyptian settlers. That being the case, we may tentatively assume that Ammon was perhaps the name of the Ethiopian kingdom on this island. The Egyptian settlers occupied the other half. Saba-Meroe, was a royal or capital city of one of these kingdoms. My suspicion is that it was the capital city of Ammon. An oracle of Jupiter too was situated on this island. Since we keep hearing of the famous oracle of Ammon, the very same that Alexander the Great stopped by to enquire of his lineage, we may safely place it in the Ammon half of the island.

Wow, Herodotus and his ancient world cronies have certainly opened the floodgates of information. They have executed a perfect double flip, a half turn and finished off with a perfect 10-point landing, with their hi-fidelity documentation. Will the Bible be able to make this jump? Or, will it flounder, fall with its pages aflutter and land with a thud on its spin, to prove the smirking biblical scholars right? Does it have the integrity or the page count to deliver a similar performance? Let us see.

Biblical Concurrence

Let us begin here by establishing the presence of a river island in the core biblical arena to match Herodotus’ river island description. As discussed in an earlier chapter, consistent reference to ‘a city that is in the midst of the river’ in the core biblical arena has puzzled biblical scholars for ages. Here are two verses from the Bible that refer to such a formation.

From Aroer, that is upon the bank of the river Arnon and the city that is in the midst of the river and all the plain of Medeba unto Dibon and all the plain by Medeba. [Joshua 13.9]

And their coast was from Aroer, that is on the bank of the river Arnon and the city that is in the midst of the river. [Joshua 13.16]

What did ‘city in the midst of the river’ mean? Knowing the Jews, it had to have meant exactly that: a city in the ‘midst of a river,’ on a river island that is. Land with a natural moat around it, was hot property as far as our warring ancestors were concerned. Familiar as we are with the clockwork consistency with which marauding armies knocked at the doors of Israel and Judah, we can well appreciate this fact. ‘The city in the midst the river’ mentioned consistently in the Bible is as explained before, an unambiguous reference to a river island that existed in the core biblical arena.
Moving on, consider the following verse from the Bible:

And Joab fought against Rabbah of the children of Ammon and took the royal city. And sent messengers to David and said, I have fought against Rabbah and have taken the city of waters. [2 Samuel 12.26&27]

Rabbah the royal city of Ammon is referred to here as a ‘city of waters,’ difficult to besiege. Nonetheless, Joab conquered it and patted himself on the back for a job well done. Two facts immediately catch our attention. One, the royal city of biblical Ammon was called ‘Rabbah.’ And two, for Rabbah to earn the name ‘city of waters,’ it was very likely fortified with water all around.

Hold on. Is this not exactly how Josephus describes Saba in Ethiopia? Saba, the royal city of Ethiopia, which Cambyses afterwards renamed Meroe, “was to be besieged with very great difficulty, since it was both encompassed by the Nile quite round and the other rivers, Astapus and Astaboras.” Saba was fortified by rivers and ramparts, as was Rabbah. Cambyses had just as much difficulty in conquering the island capital of Saba as Joab had in subduing Rabbah. Although one was in Ethiopia and the other in Canaan, both were royal cities. What is more, the names ‘Saba’ and ‘Rabbah’ sound strikingly similar. S-aba=R-abbah. Evidently, at some point in time, someone had mistakenly replaced the script that represented ‘S’ with an ‘R’ or vice-versa. This means Saba was after all, the royal city of Ammon of secular scholars. In short, there is overwhelming evidence here to conclude that Saba of Ammon in Ethiopia was Rabbah of Ammon in Canaan. Ammon=Ammon.

Half-tag

The Bible is not done yet. Consider the verse given below:

Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon and ruled from Aroer, which is upon the bank of the river Arnon and from the middle of the river and from half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon. [Joshua 12.2]

‘Half’ Gilead? What could this mean? Very likely, it is yet another one of those Jewish idiosyncrasies and knowing their penchant for descriptive names, Half Gilead would very likely be a distinct or discernable half of something. Note also that the ‘middle of the river’ is mentioned in connection with Half Gilead. Even Ammon is mentioned in this extract.

If Half Gilead was half of something, then my money is on the river island that existed in this region. Half Gilead was half that river island. Earlier we had arrived at the conclusion that Ammon was upon the island. And now we here we have Half Gilead making a claim for it. Was perhaps Half Gilead on the other half of the island? Let us see if we can find some more information to go by. Consider the following verse from the Bible:

And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead even unto the river Arnon half the valley and the border even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon. [Deuteronomy 3.16]

Oops, yet, another half equation. This time however, it is half a valley mentioned in connection with Gilead. In seems that Gilead is never mentioned ‘whole.’ It is always, ‘half Gilead’ or ‘half mount Gilead’ or ‘half a valley’ etc.

Whom else do we have here? Why, here is Ammon again! Now, we already know that Ammon was on an island and have speculated that perhaps Gilead shared the river island with Ammon. Does Ammon too should show up with a half tag? This thinking inspired a dedicated computer search of the Bible for a ‘half’ reference associated with Ammon. Sure enough, the machine faithfully ferreted out one. Here is the verse:

And their coast was Jazer and all the cities of Gilead and half the land of the children of Ammon, unto Aroer that is before Rabbah. [Joshua 13.25]

“Half the land of the children of Ammon!” Here indeed is Ammon flaunting its very own ‘half’ tag! That ought to be enough. We can safely conclude that Half Gilead and Half Ammon shared the river island Tachompso. They were the two different colonies on the island Tachompso.

Half Gilead no doubt belonged to the Egyptian settlers who occupied the island as mentioned by secular ancient world scholars. It was a Jewish city, and the Jews, as far as the people of this region were concerned, were Egyptians, for they had indeed emerged from Egypt!

Half-Gilead needs to be congratulated. It has carried this stigma of a ‘half’ tag faithfully, braving all manners of Bible editors for thousands of years. Perhaps it did so one and one reason alone. To bear witness, here and now!