4.3.2. Sun

Much less can be said about the status of the other celestial bodies in Ammon. With regard to the sun, its cyclical course across the sky, and its attendant ability to see everything, led to the association of the Semitic sun god (Šamaš) with justice (Black and Green 1992, p. 184). In Judah and Israel, solar imagery of largely Egyptian origin is common in the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, and

<sup>24</sup> There is now a significant body of scholarship discussing the ways in which the conception of Yahweh of Israel and Judah slowly absorbed the attributes of other gods and goddess, eventually yielding something like monotheism. The key period for this is under imperial power, during the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian empires (ca. 730–323 BCE). On this topic, see (Dietrich and Klopfenstein 1994; Edelman 1996; Gnuse 1997; Smith 2001, 2002).

associated with Yahweh rather than an independent sun god (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, pp. 256–61, 278–79; Lipi ´nski 1999). The sun, along with the stars and the moon, was understood to be created and controlled by Yahweh.

In Ammon a few provenanced seals provide examples of solar imagery in the form of the sun disk. Four scaraboid stamp seals have the sun disk combined with an animal (ގAmman 7; Tall al-Mazar 7, 8, 11; *CSAJ*, pp. 14–15, 298–301; Figure 9a–d). They are all dated to the 7th–6th centuries BCE. One conoid stamp seal from Tall al-Mazar depicts two worshippers facing the spade of Marduk and stylus of Nabu, and includes a winged sun disk, star, and crescent moon above the worshippers. It is dated to the seventh century BCE (Tall al-Mazar 14; *CSAJ*, pp. 300–1; Figure 9e). Tall al-Mazar 24, a cylinder seal from the eighth century BCE, depicts two winged griffins, each facing a stylized palmette. A winged sun disk and ankh serve as a scene divider behind the two griffins (*CSAJ*, pp. 306–7; Figure 9f).<sup>25</sup> In addition to the iconographic representations of the sun disk, one Ammonite ostracon from Tall Hisban that dates to the second half of the sixth century BCE includes the name *šmš*ގ*l* (*CAI*, no. 137), which can be translated as "Šamaš (sun) is god," or "Šamaš is ގEl."

**Figure 9.** Seals with solar symbolism: (**a**) ގAmman 7; (**b**) Tall al-Mazar 7; (**c**) Tall al-Mazar 8; (**d**) Tall al-Mazar 11; (**e**) Tall al-Mazar 14; (**f**) Tall al-Mazar 24.

#### 4.3.3. Stars

Alongside the moon and the sun, the stars were also objects of worship and fascination in the ancient Near East. Biblical texts variously view the stars as lesser gods, angels, or merely natural phenomena controlled by the god of Israel (Lelli 1999). Stars are visible on seals from across the southern Levant, often in association with the moon crescent, the eight-rayed star of the goddess Ištar (i.e., Venus), or both (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, pp. 292–94). The Pleiades, represented as seven dots (Black and Green 1992, p. 162) are also a common astral symbol on seals.

A number of seals from Ammon depict stars, often in association with the moon crescent and other symbols. The 8th–7th century BCE cylinder seal Tall al-Mazar 23 (Figure 4b) depicts the seven-dot Pleiades along with two falcon-headed beings, a moon crescent standard, and the eight-rayed star of Ištar (*CSAJ*, pp. 306–7). Nebo 1 (Figure 4a); another cylinder seal from the 8th–7th centuries BCE, depicts two worshippers standing before the crescent standard of Sîn. The eight-rayed star of Ištar also appears in this scene, along with several dot stars and ankh symbols (*CSAJ*, pp. 192–93). Two other cylinder seals portray stars. Dating to the 9th–8th centuries BCE, ގAmman 88 depicts a worshipper standing before a seated god. In between them stands an altar, and in the upper part of the scene is a crescent moon and six triangles most likely representing stars (Figure 10a) (*CSAJ*, pp. 58–59). Tall al-Mazar 25 (Figure 10b), a cylinder seal that dates to the 8th–7th centuries BCE, depicts an animal in front of a standard holding a six-rayed star (*CSAJ*, pp. 306–7). Tall al-ގUmeiri 78 (Figure 4c) has

<sup>25</sup> Two non-provenanced seals display winged sun disks. A scaraboid stamp seal that is supposedly from Amman and probably dates between the end of the eighth and beginning of the 6th century BCE, depicts a winged sun disk in the middle of three registers with the owner's name split across the top and bottom registers (ØގAmman 74; *CSAJ*, pp. 50–51). There is also a scarab stamp seal supposedly from Salt, which dates to the Persian Period (end of 6th–5th centuries BCE), and hence may fall outside the temporal parameters of this paper. This piece depicts the Egyptian deities Isis and Harpokrates facing one another inside what appears to be a shrine. The roof of the shrine is depicted as a winged sun disk. Another sun disk without wings and yet another winged sun disk sit above the shrine roof (ØSalt 4; *CSAJ*, pp. 276–77).

a six-rayed star, a moon crescent standard, and several dots presumably representing stars (*CSAJ*, pp. 356–57).

**Figure 10.** Seals with astral symbolism: (**a**) ގAmman 88; (**b**) Tall al-Mazar 25.

Three conoid stamp seals dating to the 7th–6th centuries BCE depict stars. The simplest of these is ގAmman 53, which depicts a crescent moon, a star, and plants (Figure 7a). The main scene in Tall al-ގUmeiri 66 is of a cow with a calf beneath it, and above it a moon crescent and disk surrounded by dots most likely representing stars (*CSAJ*, pp. 348–49; Figure 6b). Tall al-Mazar 14 is by far the most complex of these scenes, depicting two worshippers before the symbols of Marduk and Nabu, with a winged sun disk, crescent, and star above (*CSAJ*, pp. 300–1; Figure 5d).<sup>26</sup> Only one provenanced scaraboid stamp seal from Ammon depicts a star. Umm Udeina 1, which dates to the eighth century BCE (Figure 7c) is mostly taken up by an inscription identifying the owner. In the upper register there is a crescent moon and a six-rayed star (*CSAJ*, pp. 474–75).27

The sample of seals from Ammon containing stars is rather small, and hence it is difficult to draw too many firm conclusions from it. Given that the eight-rayed star of Ištar appears only on two of the cylinder seals, it is difficult to assess whether this goddess or her representative symbol had much impact in Ammon. The eight-rayed star of Ištar is known on scaraboid stamp seals from elsewhere in the Levant (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, pp. 292–97, illus. 288a, b, 289), and there is a linguistic—if not conceptual—connection between Ištar and the Levantine goddess Astarte (Pettinato 2005). The present state of the evidence, however, does not allow any firm conclusions for Ammon.28 The iconographic evidence for stars more generally, which is still not abundant for Ammon, does suggest a minor role in Ammonite religion especially in association with the moon.
