Mannaea (/məˈniːə/, sometimes written as Mannea; Akkadian: Mannai, Biblical Hebrew: Minni, (מנּי)) was an ancient kingdom located in northwestern Iran, south of Lake Urmia, around the 10th to 7th centuries BCE.

The name of Mannaea and its earliest recorded ruler Udaki were first mentioned in an inscription from the 30th year of the rule of Shalmaneser III (828 BC).

[4] Describing the march of Salmanasar III in the 16th year (843 BC), it was reported that the king reached the land of Munna, occupying the interior of Zamua.

The name "Armenia" has been theorized by some scholars as possibly deriving from "ḪAR Minni," meaning, the “mountains of Minni.” According to examinations of the place and personal names found in Assyrian and Urartian texts, the Mannaeans, or at least their rulers, spoke a non-Semitic and non-Indo-European language related to Urartian, with no modern language connections.

[10] However, after assessing the genetics of individuals found at Hasanlu Tepe, recent scholarship has suggested the possibility of the presence of Indo-Europeans, who perhaps spoke a language related to Armenian.

[12] Excavations that began in 1956 succeeded in uncovering Ziwiyeh and its branches the fortified city of Hasanlu, once thought to be a potential Mannaean site.

After suffering several defeats at the hands of both Scythians and Assyrians, the remnants of the Mannaean populace were absorbed by the Matieni and the area became known as Matiene.

Udaki and Azā, are explicable in Old Iranian terms.According to Robert H. Dyson, Jr.[16] The Mannaeans, a little known people related linguistically to the Urartians and the Hurrians of northern Mesopotamia, were settled on the southeastern shore of Lake Urmia and southward into the mountain area of Urmia.After examining the genetics of individuals associated with Hasanlu Tepe during the Bronze and Iron Ages, Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2022) concluded the inhabitants of Hasanlu may have spoken a language related to Armenian, or perhaps a non-Indo-European language.

The Mannaean king Ahsheri, who ruled until the 650s BC, continued to enlarge the territory of Mannaea, although paying tribute to Assyria.

However, Mannaea suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Assyrians around 660 BC, and subsequently an internal revolt broke out, continuing until Ahsheri's death.

However, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had dominated the region for three hundred years, began to unravel, consumed by civil war after the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC.