Editing Ammon (section)

==History==
{{Further|List of rulers of Ammon}}
[[File:Statue of an Ammonite deified King on display at the Jordan Museum.jpg|thumb|right|Statue of an Ammonite deified King on display at the [[Jordan Museum]]. The statue was found near the [[Amman Citadel]] and is thought to date to 8th century BC.]]

The Ammonites occupied the northern Central Trans-Jordanian Plateau from the latter part of the second millennium BC to at least the second century AD.

Ammon maintained its independence from the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]] (10th to 7th centuries BC) by paying tribute to the Assyrian kings at a time when that Empire raided or conquered nearby kingdoms.<ref name=Jordan/> The [[Kurkh Monolith]] lists the Ammonite king [[Baasha ben Ruhubi]]'s army as fighting alongside [[Ahab]] of [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Israel]] and [[Syria]]n allies against [[Shalmaneser III]] at the [[Battle of Qarqar]] in 853 BC, possibly as vassals of [[Hadadezer]], the Aramaean king of [[Aram Damascus|Damascus]]. In 734 BC the Ammonite king [[Sanipu]] was a vassal of [[Tiglath-Pileser III]] of Assyria, and Sanipu's successor [[Pudu-ilu]] held the same position under [[Sennacherib]] ({{reign|705|681}}) and [[Esarhaddon]] ({{reign|681|669}}).<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline= y|wstitle= Ammonites |volume=1|pages=863–864}}</ref> An Assyrian tribute-list exists from this period, showing that Ammon paid one-fifth as much tribute as Judah did.<ref>See Schrader, ''K.A.T.'' pp. 141 et seq.; Delitzsch, ''Paradies,'' p. 294; Winckler, ''Geschichte Israels,'' p. 215.</ref>

Somewhat later, the Ammonite king [[Amminadab I of Ammon|Amminadab I]] ({{floruit | 650 BC}}) was among the tributaries who suffered in the course of the great [[Arabia]]n campaign of [[Assurbanipal]].<ref name="EB1911" /> Other kings attested to in contemporary sources are [[Barachel (Ammon)|Barachel]] (attested to in several contemporary [[Seal (emblem)|seals]]) and [[Hissalel]]; Hissalel reigned about 620 BC, and is mentioned in an inscription on a [[Tel Siran inscription|bronze bottle found at Tel Siran]] in present-day [[Amman]], along with his son, King [[Amminadab II of Ammon|Amminadab II]], who reigned around 600 BC.

Archaeology and history indicate that Ammon flourished during the period of the [[Neo-Babylonian Empire]] (626 to 539 BC). This contradicts the view, dominant for decades, that Transjordan was either destroyed by [[Nebuchadnezzar II]], or suffered a rapid decline following Judah's destruction by that king. Newer evidence suggests that Ammon enjoyed continuity from the Neo-Babylonian to the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian]] period of 550 to 330 BC.<ref name="Barstad2012">{{cite book|author=Barstad, Hans M. |authorlink=Hans M. Barstad|editor1=John J. Ahn|editor-link1=John J. Ahn|editor2=Jill Middlemas |chapter=The City State of Jerusalem in the Neo-Babylonian Empire: Evidence from the Surrounding States|title=By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a6eoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA42|date=18 February 2012|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-0-567-19775-7|pages=42–44}}</ref> One reason includes Ammon becoming a Babylonian province, shortly after being devastated by Nebuchadnezzar II in the 580s BC.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lipschits |first=Oded |date=2004 |title=Ammon in Transition from Vassal Kingdom to Babylonian Province |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/4150068 |journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research |volume=335 |issue=1 |pages=37–52 |doi=10.2307/4150068 |jstor=4150068 |via=The University of Chicago Press Journals|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In accounts in the [[First Book of Maccabees]], the Ammonites and their neighboring tribes are noted for having resisted the revival of Jewish power under [[Judas Maccabaeus]] in the period 167 to 160 BC.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref>[[1 Maccabees]] 5:6; cf. [[Josephus]] ''[[Jewish Antiquities]]'' xii. 8. 1.</ref> The dynast Hyrcanus founded [[Qasr al Abd#History|Qasr Al Abd]], and was a descendant of the Seleucid [[Tobiad]] dynasty of [[Book of Tobit|Tobiah]], whom [[Nehemiah]] mentions in the 5th century BC as an Ammonite (ii. 19) from the east-Jordanian district.

By the [[Roman Republic|Roman]] conquest of the Levant by [[Pompey]] in 63 BC,<ref name="roman2">{{Cite book |last1=Parker |first1=Samuel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PVZfx3Y6o5IC&pg=PA573 |title=The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan: Final Report on the Limes Arabicus Project |last2=Betlyon |first2=John |publisher=Dumbarton Oaks |year=2006 |isbn=9780884022985 |page=573 |access-date=3 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230410044112/https://books.google.com/books?id=PVZfx3Y6o5IC&pg=PA573 |archive-date=10 April 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Ammon lost its distinct identity through assimilation.<ref name="AEM">{{cite conference |last1=LaBianca |first1=Oystein S. |last2=Younker |first2=Randall W. |date=1995 |title=The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom: The Archaeology of Society in Late Bronze/Iron Age Transjordan (ca. 1400–500 BCE) |url=https://www.academia.edu/744029 |publisher=Leicester University Press |page=114 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210809031715/https://www.academia.edu/744029 |archive-date=9 August 2021 |access-date=16 June 2018 |book-title=The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land |editor=Thomas Levy |url-status=live}}</ref>

However, the last notice of the Ammonites occurs in [[Justin Martyr]]'s ''Dialogue with Trypho'' (§ 119), in the second century AD; Justin affirms that they were still a numerous people.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref>{{cite web|author=St. Justin Martyr |title=Dialogue with Trypho|url=http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-dialoguetrypho.html|website=Early Christian Writings|publisher=Peter Kirby|access-date=27 June 2016}}</ref>