The land of Matiene was surrounded to the north by Armenia, to the east by Media, to the south by
Susiana, and to the west by
Assyria. Its chief city was Matiati around
Lake Van. It is believed that the population of Matiene were speaking a
Hurro-Urartian language. Known descendants of the kings(chieftains) of the matian tribes was Armenian princely (naxarar) family of
Amatuni Cimmerians were said to have originated from the Matiani by
Herodotus, moving west into
Anatolia along the south shore of the
Black Sea. Herodotus also said that later, in Median times, there was a second site called Matiene, along the eastern shore of the
Halys river in northwestern
Cappadocia across the river from the
Phrygians. He stated they wore the same uniform as the
Paphlagonians in the Median and Persian armies, meaning their units were combined with the Paphlagonians. It is not at all clear whether these western Matieni were descendants of the Cimmerians, a group of
Paphlagonians just called by this name, actual (eastern) Matieni who migrated west from Matiene on their own, or a Median military colony on the border with Phrygia and later the
Lydian empire. ==References==