Maryannu

The Maryannu were a caste of chariot-mounted hereditary warrior nobility that existed in many of the societies of the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. Maryannu is a Hurrianized Indo-Aryan word, formed by adding the Hurrian suffix -nni to the Indo-Aryan root márya, meaning "(young) man" or a "young warrior". Philologist Martin West suggested that the name Meriones, a character in Homeric epic, is "identical" to maryannu. Thus, Mērionēs would be the Homeric Greek version of the term, reflected in pre-Mycenaean poetic verse as Mārionās.

The term is attested in the Amarna letters written by Haapi. The majority of the Maryannu had Semitic and Hurrian names.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.