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Who were the Mitanni?
The Mitanni Empire was founded around 1475 BC in the northern Euphrates-Tigris region, which would be northern Syria and Turkey today. The ethnicity of the first settlers is still debated. Some historians believe that they were Indo-Aryans or Indo-Iranians, while others believe they were of Semitic-Hyksos (Egyptian) origin. However, the jury is still out.
Historians have been left very little to work with when it comes to determining the original ethnicity of the Mitanni people. They have mostly focused on an old treaty that was signed with the Hittites. This treaty mentions the names of several deities, and the hope was that these names could point toward an origin for the Mitanni people.
The treaty mentions gods such as Indra and Mithra, but unfortunately, both the Indo-Aryans and Indo-Iranians worshiped gods under those names. This has made it essentially impossible to narrow down the ethnicity any further with the current evidence.
The name Mitanni most likely comes from the nation's ruling class warriors called Maryannu. The Egyptians translated this as Naharin and Metani , creating Mettani, which then became Mitanni. As for the everyday people who lived there, they were Hurrian. In records, the Hittites referred to them as the Huri and the area as "the land of the Huri".
https://www.ancient-origins.net/anci...empire-0017337
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