kingdom · Mesopotamia and Iran

Marhashi

2500 BCE – 1900 BCE (approx.)

A wealthy kingdom of the Iranian plateau, east of Elam, that traded luxury stone vessels and exotic animals with Mesopotamia and fought the kings of Akkad.

Origins

Marhashi (Parahshum in Akkadian) lay beyond Elam, probably in the Kerman and Jiroft region of south-eastern Iran, where the Bronze Age Jiroft culture produced carved chlorite vessels found as far afield as Mesopotamia. It is first mentioned in the mid-third millennium BCE as a powerful eastern land.

Rule and society

Mesopotamian texts present Marhashi as a large kingdom with its own kings and wide trade links across the plateau to the Indus, supplying semi-precious stones, chlorite bowls and animals such as the 'dogs of Marhashi'. Its kings allied with Elam against Sargon and Rimush of the Akkadian Empire, and Rimush records defeating Abalgamash, king of Marhashi. Under the Neo-Sumerian Empire relations were peaceful: Shulgi married a daughter to Libanukshabash of Marhashi.

Decline and legacy

Marhashi is last mentioned in the early second millennium BCE, and its decline mirrors the collapse of the trading towns of south-eastern Iran around 1900 BCE. Its identification with the Jiroft finds remains a hypothesis.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.

Connections (2)

More states of Mesopotamia and Iran →

Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Marhashi. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/marhashi
MLA
“Marhashi.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/marhashi. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Marhashi.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/marhashi.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Marhashi’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/marhashi (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻