The diocese of Ammonia (Latin: Dioecesis Ammoniacensis) is a suppressed and titular see of the Roman Catholic Church. [1] It is all that remains of the ancient bishopric that was centered the Siwa Oasis during late antiquity, [2] when it was in the Roman province of Marmarica and suffraged by the archdiocese of Darni. Today Ammoniace survives as a titular bishopric and has been vacant since January 24, 1983. [3]
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese".
Late antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the Near East. The popularization of this periodization in English has generally been accredited to historian Peter Brown, after the publication of his seminal work The World of Late Antiquity (1971). Precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate, but Brown proposes a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Generally, it can be thought of as from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century to, in the East, the early Muslim conquests in the mid-7th century. In the West the end was earlier, with the start of the Early Middle Ages typically placed in the 6th century, or earlier on the edges of the Western Roman Empire.
The Siwa Oasis is an urban oasis in Egypt between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea in the Western Desert, 50 km (30 mi) east of the Libyan border, and 560 km (348 mi) from Cairo. About 80 km (50 mi) in length and 20 km (12 mi) wide, Siwa Oasis is one of Egypt's most isolated settlements with about 33,000 people, mostly Berbers, who developed a unique culture and a distinct language of the Berber family called Siwi.
