An Archaeological View to the Mannaean Kingdom

The Mannaean Kingdom’s heartland is located south of Lake Urmia and north of Lake Zaribar in the Zagros Mountain in western Iran from the 9th to 6th centuries BC. Until recently, knowledge on the Mannaeans mostly came from Assyrian texts and, in rare cases, from Urartian inscriptions. In the last five decades, new findings from archaeological excavations and surveys have revealed other aspects of Mannaean material culture. Most of these excavations have been published in Iranian journals, which present summaries without clear methodologies or typologies. This article is an attempt at synthesizing recent publications on archaeological field studies, in some of which the author participated. The goal is document the state of knowledge of the Mannaean culture based on the results of recent archaeological excavations and to share a more articulate understanding of this kingdom with a larger audience.