Maryannu
Sign in to saveright|thumb|450px|Possible Maryannu from the Tomb of Userhet 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, in particular between 1700 and 1200 BC. 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, ref
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right|thumb|450px|Possible Maryannu from the Tomb of Userhet 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, in particular between 1700 and 1200 BC. 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.