Oracle of Ammon

The oracle of Amun stood in the remote Siwa Oasis of Egypt's Western Desert. The Greeks called it Ammonium and equated the ram-headed Egyptian god with Zeus. Greek settlers from Cyrene contacted the sanctuary in the seventh century BC.

About 525 BC the Persian king Cambyses II sent fifty thousand men across the desert to subdue it; according to Herodotus the force vanished in a sandstorm. In 331 BC Alexander the Great crossed the desert, supposedly guided by birds, and the priests greeted him as the god's son and confirmed him as legitimate pharaoh of Egypt.

Under the Ptolemies the sanctuary retained its prestige, but its influence later waned. With the Christianisation of the late Roman Empire the oracle fell silent, leaving the ruined temple among the oasis palms.