MANNAI

also spelled Manna, or Mana, ancient country in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia. During the period of its existence in the early 1st millennium BC, Mannai was surrounded by three major powers: Assyria, Urartu, and Media. The Mannaeans are first recorded in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (reigned 858824 BC) and are last mentioned in Urartu by Rusa II (reigned 685645 BC) and in Assyria by Esarhaddon (reigned 680669 BC). With the intrusion of the Scythians and the rise of the Medes in the 7th century, the Manneans lost their identity and were subsumed under the term Medes. Place-names and personal names in Mannai are thought to be in a dialect related to the Hurrian language of the Hittite empire.