Roughly the history of Siwa can be divided into four periods. The first, which is also the greatest period, dates from the foundation of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon. The second period begins at the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh century A.D. The third period commences with the subjugation of Siwa by Mohammed Ali, early in the nineteenth century; and the fourth and last period is the history of Siwa during the Great War.
(1)
FIRST PERIOD
The Temple of Jupiter Ammon
According to the late Professor Maspero, the great authority on Egyptian antiquities, the oasis of Siwa was not connected with Egypt until about the sixteenth century B.C. In about 1175 B.C. the Egyptian oases, of which Siwa is one, were colonized by Rameses III, but very little authentic information is available on the history of Siwa until it came definitely under the influence of Egypt in the sixth century B.C. Mr. Oric Bates, in his exhaustive work, The Eastern Libyans, states that the original deity of the oasis was a sun god, a protector of flocks, probably with the form of a bull. The African poet Coreippus, mentions a ram-headed Libyan divinity called Gurzil who was represented as being the offspring of the original prophetic God of Siwa. His priests fought in battles, and the emblem of the god was carried by the Libyans in the fray. A sacred stone at Siwa is referred to by Pliny, which when touched by an irreverent hand stirred at once a strong and harmful sand-wind. The theory of sun worship, and the idea of an evil wind directed by some spirit in a stone is substantiated by the local customs and legends which are prevalent in Siwa at the present time.
It is certain that when the Egyptians occupied Siwa, in about 550 B.C., according to Mr. Bates, they discovered a local Libyan god firmly established and supported by a powerful but barbarous cult. So great was its reputation that King Crœsus of Lydia travelled to Siwa and consulted the oracle a little before, or at the time of, the Egyptian occupation. The Egyptians identified the local god of the oasis with their own Ammon. In the fourth century B.C. the god Ammon, of the Ammonians, for this was the name by which the people of Siwa were now known, had become one of the most famous oracles of the ancient world. At the time when the Egyptians recognized and worshipped the god of the oasis, a number of stories became prevalent, tending to prove that the deity at Siwa originated from the Ammon of Thebes, and one legend even went so far as to assert that the Ammon of Thebes was himself originally a Libyan herdsman who was deified by Dionysius. The following are some of the many legends which relate the origin of the Siwan god, and which suggest its connection with the Theban Ammon.
Herodotus, in whose works there are frequent allusions to the Ammonians, describes the inhabitants of the oasis of Ammon as being colonists from Egypt and Ethiopia, speaking a mixed language, and calling themselves Ammonians, owing to the Egyptians worshipping Jupiter under the name of Ammon. He relates that the colonists instituted an oracle in imitation of the famous one on the Isle of Meroë, and mentions the following account of its origin. Two black girls who served in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon at Thebes were carried away by Phœnician merchants. One of them was taken to Greece, where she afterwards founded the Temple of Dodona, which became a well-known oracle; the other was sold into Libya and eventually arrived at the kingdom of the Ammonians. Owing to her strange language, which resembled “the twittering of a bird,” she was supposed by the inhabitants to possess supernatural qualities; her reputation increased, and her utterances came to be regarded as the words of an oracle. There is a different version of the same fable in which the girls are represented as two black doves, one flying to Greece, the other to Libya.
According to Diodorus Siculus the Temple of Jupiter Ammon was built as far back as 1385 B.C., by Danaus the Egyptian. Rollins, in his History of the Ancient World, names Ham, the son of Noah, as the deity in whose honour the temple was built by the Ammonians. Another legend tells that Dionysius was lost in the desert on one of his fantastic expeditions and nearly died from thirst when suddenly a ram appeared, which led the party to a bubbling spring. They built a temple on the spot, in gratitude, and ornamented it with representations of a ram’s head. It is interesting to compare this story with one of the legends written in the Arabic history of Siwa. A Siwan, journeying in the desert, was led by a ram to a mysterious city where he found an avenue of black stone lions. He returned home, and set out again at a later date, meaning to rediscover the place, but he never found it again. In both cases it is a ram that led the way, and the god of Siwa is represented as having a ram’s head.
The temple, whose ruins are to be seen at the village of Aghourmi, near Siwa, was built probably during the sixth century B.C. The date is decided by the style of its architecture. This temple was known to the Egyptians as “Sakhit Amouou,” the “Field of Palms,” owing to its situation among groves of palm trees. It is evident that at this time Siwa was the principal island in a desert archipelago consisting of several oases, most of which are now uninhabited, obeying a common king and owing their prosperity to the great temple of the oracle. Such a cluster of islands would invest the dynasty to which King Clearchus and King Lybis belonged with considerable importance. Herodotus tells how certain Cyrenians held a conversation with Clearchus, King of the Ammonians, who told them that a party of young men had set off on an expedition from his country to the west, through a wild region full of savage animals, eventually arriving at a great river where they found a race of small black men. They supposed this river to be a branch or tributary of the Nile, but it was actually the river Niger. Thus it is shown that at this period Siwa was an independent monarchy. The Ammonians lived under the rule of their own kings and priests, and chieftainship was associated with priesthood. Silius Italicus describes the warrior priest Nabis, an Ammonian chief, “fearless and splendidly armed,” riding in the army of Hannibal.
Another early visitor to the oasis was Lysander the Spartan. Being disappointed by the oracle of Dodona he travelled to Siwa, under colour of making a vow at the temple, but hoping to bribe the priests to his interests. Notwithstanding “the fullness of his purse” and the great friendship between his father and Lybis, King of the Ammonians, he was totally unsuccessful, and the priests sent ambassadors to Sparta accusing Lysander of attempting to bribe the holy oracle. But “he so subtly managed his defence that he got off clear.” The Greeks held the oracle of Ammon in great veneration. The Athenians kept a special galley in which they conveyed questions across the sea to Libya. Mersa Matruh, sometimes called Ammonia, was the port for Siwa, and it was here that the ambassadors and visitors disembarked and started on their desert journey to the oasis. The poet Pindar dedicated an ode to Jupiter Ammon, which was preserved under the altar of the temple for some six hundred years; and the sculptor Calamis set up a statue to the god of the Ammonians in the Temple of Thebes at Karnak.