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'Maryannu' is an ancient word for the caste of chariot-mounted nobility which dominated many of the societies of the Middle East during the Bronze Age. The word is believed to derive from the Indo-European root ''mary'', or "noble".
Indo-European maryannu classes are believed to have ruled over the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni and over the kingdom of the Hittites. Many Canaanite rulers had Indo-European or Hurrian names and may have derived from immigrant maryannu groups. Similar groups dominated the various city-states of Mycenaean Greece.