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Showing posts with label Origin of Bulgars and Huns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Origin of Bulgars and Huns. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Bulgars titles - kanasubigi

Kanasubigi was a title of early Bulgars rulers. It is a compound word which consists of archaic form
Greek Inscription of Bulgars title "Kanas ubigi Omurtag", Madara, Bulgaria - Bulgars title is the same as Yuezhi title
Kanas ubigi Omurtag,
Madara, Bulgaria
kana for khan (king, ruler) and the title yabgu. Commonly known as Turkic titles of nobility both titles actually are not of Turkic origin and were first used by the Yuezhi and Wusun - nomadic people from north-western China (Gansu and Turfan regions), of whose languages hardly anything is known.


Kan/kagan was an Yuezhi title. According to Hyun Jin Kim the nomadic Yuezhi possessed political institutions that closely resemble the Xiongnu and later Hunnic models. The Chinese refer to the five xihou or Lords of the Yuezhi who rule the five tribes of their imperial confederation. According to Pulleyblank the Yuezhi were Indo-Europeans and they spoke a Tocharian type language.[1] The title xihou corresponds in the pronunciation to what would later become the Turkic title yubgu. This originally Yuezhi royal title appears on the coins of their rulers as IAPGU/yavuga[2] and it came to the Xiongnu from the Yuezhi.[3] F. Hirth has successfully compared the transcription sihou (<*khiəp-g’u) with a title yavugo on the Yuezhi-Kushan coins from Kabulistan and yabγu of the ancient Turkic monuments. This title is first of all an Yuezhi title, and it is a "true Tocharian" title. In the 11 BC an Yuezhi from the Xiongnu state fell in the Han captivity, he was a "chancellor" with the title sihou (yabgu). After 4 years he returned to the Xiongnu chanyu. Chanyu gave him his former post of a "second (after Chanyu) man in the state" and retained the title sihou (yabgu). The bearer of this high title did not belong to the Xiongnu dynastic line, but he was a member of the numerous Yuezhi autonomous diasporas in the Xiongnu confederation. This history suggests that in the Wusun (Asman, Ashina) state Butszü-sihou also was a yabgu. Among the Turks, the title yabgu gained a new lease of life. In the Turkish inscriptions of Mongolia, it refers to a noble ranking immediately after the qagan.[4] Kuyan/gayan was a "common Yuezhi symbol for a terrestrial embodiment for the Moon and Milky Way". The myth about Milky Way Kagan found some new aspects among Turks and Mongols but the essence remained the same.[5]

Bulgars' tribes originated from the Great Yuezhi. The Great Yuezhi entered Europe together with the Huns and in the beginning they were called with their old name Massagetae.[6] Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Yury Zuev and some modern Bulgarian scholars identify the Bulgars Utigurs as one of the tribes of the Yuezhi. According to Edwin G. Pulleyblank and Yury Zuev the Utigurs of Menander are Uti, and the word Uti was a real proto-type of a transcription Yuezhi < Uechji < ngiwat-tie < uti.[7-10]

References:

1. THE PEOPLES OF THE STEPPE FRONTIER IN EARLY CHINESE SOURCES, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, University of British Columbia, (1999), Summary, page 35

2. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, Hyun Jin Kim, (2013, Cambridge University Press), page 256

3. Turks and Iranians: Aspects of Turk and Khazaro-Iranian Interaction, Peter B. Golden, page 17, footnote 89, Zuev, Early Turks, p.31 : "This title is first of all an Uechji title, or, in the opinion of the eminent scientist [F. Hirth, 1899, p. 48-50], it is a “true Tocharian” title. "

4. ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA, JABḠUYA : "Although yabḡu is best known as a Turkish title of nobility, it was in use many centuries before the Turks appear in the historical record. ... Among the Turks, the title yabḡu gained a new lease of life."

5. EARLY TURKS: ESSAYS on HISTORY and IDEOLOGY, Yu. A. Zuev, page 39

6. SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS, Number 127 October, 2003, The Getes, page 22-24 : Da Yuezhi -> Ta-Yue-ti (Great Lunar Race) -> Ta-Gweti -> Massa-Getae

7. EARLY TURKS: ESSAYS on HISTORY and IDEOLOGY, Yu. A. Zuev, p.38 and p.62 : " The Utigurs of Menandr are Uti, associated with Aorses of the Pliny "Natural history" (VI, 39). The word Uti was a real proto-type of a transcription Uechji < ngiwat-tie < uti (Pulleyblank, 1966, p. 18)"

8. TEMPORA INCOGNITA НА РАННАТА БЪЛГАРСКА ИСТОРИЯ, В ТЪРСЕНЕ НА ПРАРОДИНАТА, Проф. Атанас Стаматов

9. ТАРИМ И БАКТРИЯ - В ТЪРСЕНЕ НА БЪЛГАРСКАТА ПРАРОДИНА, Петър Голийски, сборник Авитохол

10. Chinese and Indo-Europeans, E. G. Pulleyblank, 1966, Cambridge University Press

Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Hunno-Bulgarian language (Bulgar language)

Bulgar language (also spelled Bolgar, Bulghar) is an extinct language spoken by the Bulgars.

The name is derived from the Bulgars, a semi-nomadic people in Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. A tribal union of Bulgar tribes established the Bulgar state, known as Old Great Bulgaria in the mid-7th century, eventually giving rise to the Danube Bulgaria by the 680s and Volga Bulgaria. The language is extinct in both Danube Bulgaria (10th century) and Volga Bulgaria (16th century)[1].

One of the earliest written sources which mentioned Bulgars is the Chronography of 354 AD. Bulgars came to Europe together with the Huns[2] and both groups of people didn't have written languages. Apparently Bulgars played an important role in the Hunnic union - we are told that Bulgar tribes were active in the North-Western Carpathians at the beginning of 5th century against the Germanic Lombards. There were two battles and the Bulgars were victorious. In the first battle the Lombard king Agelmund was killed. His son Laimicho attempted to revenge his father but was defeated and forced to run away.[3] After the battle of Nedao (455 AD.) in which Attila's sons were defeated, the Huns and Bulgars, as we learn from Jordanes, retreated into their "inner" territory on the river Dnieper (Ukraine) where they reorganized on a smaller scale.[4]


Affiliation of the Bulgar language

Hunno-bulgarian (Bulgar) sample written in Greek alphabet, NE Bulgaria, 8th century
Hunno-bulgarian written in Greek alphabet
Inscription on stone from  Dluzho, north-eastern
Bulgaria, 8th century

The Huns and Bulgars spoke closely related languages different from others “barbarian” languages. The relations between the language of Bulgars and Huns were studied by Harvard professor Pritsak in his notable work "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan" (1982).[5] He termed the language of Bulgars as Hunno-Bulgarian. Pritsak analyzed the 33 survived Hunnic personal names and concluded that the language of the Bulgars was Hunnic language:

1. Danube-Bulgarian was a Hunnic language (page 444)

2. Danube-Bulgarian had the suffix /mA/, with the same meaning as the Middle Turkic suffix /mAt/      'the greatest among' (page 433)

3. In the Hunno-Bulgarian languages /r/ within a consonantic cluster tends to disappear (page 435)

4. In Hunno-Bulgarian there was also a tendency toward the develop ment of di > ti > ći (page 436)

5. In the Hunno-Bulgarian there was vocalic metathesis bli- < *bil (page 443)

6. There was initially a g- in the Hunno-Bulgarian languages (page 449)

7. One of the typical features of the Hunno-Bulgarian linguistic group is a cluster in the word initial       position. (page 460)

8. Hunnic (language) shared rhotacism with Mongolian, Old Bulgarian, and Chuvash. (page 470)

According to Pritsak the Hunnic language was between Turkic and Mongolian, probably closer to Turkic. 

According to Antoaneta Granberg (University of Gothenburg) the Hunno-Bulgarian language was formed on the North-Western borders of China in the 3rd-5th c. BC. Analyzing the loan-words in Slavonic, she concluded that Bulgar language was directly influenced by various languages: Turkic, Mongolian, Chinese and Iranian. In the 6th century when Turkic tribes reached the borders of the China, the Huns and Bulgars were not there.[6] Turkic languages contain Hunno-Bulgarian loans but they were taken via Chinese mediator. For example Hunnic ch’eng-li (sky, heaven) was borrowed from Chinese as tängri in Turkic.[7] The Hunno-Bulgarian language has non-Turkic and non-Altaic features. Granberg observes that "Altaic has no initial consonant clusters, while Hunno-Bulgarian does. Unlike Turkic and Mongolian, Hunno-Bulgarian language has no initial dental or velar spirants. Unlike Turkic, it has initial voiced b-: bagatur (a title), boyla (a title). Unlike Turkic, Hunno-Bulgarian has initial n-, which is also encountered in Mongolian: Negun, Nebul (proper names)." In sum, Antoaneta Granberg concludes that "Hunno-Bulgarian language has no consistent set of features that unite it with either Turkic or Mongolian. Neither can it be related to Sino-Tibetian languages, because it obviously has no monosyllabic word structure." Often Hunno-Bulgarian language is termed Turkic which is not correct, Altaic is more to the point.[8]

Some scholars claim that Bulgars were specific Turkic tribes, the so called Oghurs, and that they spoke Oghur Turkic. However this hypothesis cannot explain the genetic tests. Also such people as Oghurs are not documented in any of the Chinese, Iranian, Indian or Armenian sources. Actually we know nothing of the languages of the nomadic people who entered Europe before the 7th century AD. The theories for existence of specific Turkic group (the so called Oghurs), to which Bulgars supposedly belonged, are nothing more than a hypothesis.[2]  


References:


1. The Hunno-Bulgarian Language, Antoaneta Granberg, Göteborg University, 2008, page 7

2. Khazaria in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Boris Zhivkov, page 37: "It is generally accepted that the Bulgars came to Europe either slightly earlier or during the Hunnic invasion"

3. Pauli Historia Langobardorum, MGH, Scr. rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI—IX, I
    Образуване на българската народност, Димитър Ангелов, p. 123

4. Bulgar people, Encyclopædia Britannica

5. The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan, OMELJAN PRITSAK, Harvard Ukrainian Studies (1982)

6. Pulleyblank 1963: 239-265

7. Pulleyblank 1963:240

8. The Hunno-Bulgarian Language, Antoaneta Granberg, Danish Society for Central Asia’s Electronic Yearbook, pages 6-10






Saturday, January 28, 2017

Origin of Turks

The ethnonym Turk first appears with certainty in the Chinese sources dealing with events of the mid-sixth century in the form Tujue in Modern Mandarin Chinese. The exact form of the ethnonym masked by the Chinese character remains contested.[1][2]

These Turks were not the first Turkic-speaking people attested in our sources. The first Turkic speaking people identifiable in Chinese sources are a group of three peoples, Dingling, Gekun ( or Jiankun), and Xinli, located to the north in Southern Siberia that were conquered by Modun after he had subdued the Eastern Hu and the Yuezhi on his eastern and western flanks. There is a thread of historical continuity linking the Dingling of Han times with the Tiele of the fifth and sixth centuries out of whom the Uighurs eventually emerge. The Gekun/Jiankun have long been identified with the Kirghiz. The name Xinli is probably the same as Xue of seventh century Chinese sources, transcribing the Turkish tribal name Syr found on the Orkhon inscriptions. A fourth ethnic name of Western Han times that might be Turkish, located farther west, is Hujie or Wujie. A connection has been proposed with Turkish Ogur/Oguz but is less convincing phonetically.[3][4]

The Loulan in Xinjiang, the Yuezhi and the Wusun are Indo-Europeans. Xiongnu ethno-linguistic affiliations remain obscure. They have been identified as Turkic (perhaps, some “Pre-Proto-Bulgaric,”), Iranian or Palaeo-Siberian (in particular Kettic, a theory proposed by Ligeti more than half a century ago) The relationship of the Xiongnu ( EMC Hun-nu) to peoples subsequently appearing in the central - western Eurasian steppes and Europe bearing the ethnonym “Hun” ( or variants of it - Iranian-Sodian (hwn), Indian(Huna), Graeco-Roman Hunni) ) has also been contentious. The most recent considerations of the material argue for a Xiongnu-Hun connection.[4]


The Turkic ancient homeland



Tiele appears to be a later name (or variant) of the ethnonym Dingling - one of the names associated with early Turkic peoples. The Dingling/Tiele come into view in the second century BC in the area north of the Xiongnu, in Northern Mongolia and the Irtys region,extending to Lake Baikal and the Middle Yenisei. The Tiele union included Mongolic, as well as Turkic groupings. They were brought by force into the Xiongnu union and remained recalcitrant vassals. The Tiele formed a number of polities before their incorporation into the Turk Empire.

The various reconstructions, based largely on linguistic evidence showed that the early Turkic linguistic community must have been in a zone in which they had contact with Indo-European, Uralic and Yeniseic in their West and Northwest and Mongolic in their East. This was most probably in the forest-steppe zone of South Siberia around the Altay extending into Mongolia, where they may also have acquired elements of equestrian culture and pastoral nomadism from the Indo-Europeans.


The Indo-European Scytho-Iranians were their neighbors (and likely predecessors) in Mongolia and South Siberia (and perhaps extending into areas of Western Siberia). In Eastern Turkistan/Xinjiang, the early Turks interacted with both eastern Iranian and Tokharian-speaking peoples.[4]


Ashina dynasty


According to the legends Ashina people migrated towards the Altai Mountains from East Turkestan or the Turpan Oasis. As stated in one of these legends the sons of the she-wolf (ten in number) married local women and took their family names, one of which was Ashina. Most probably the name Ashina itself is of Iranian origin. The two most senior titles after that of the Khagan in the Turkic Khaganate were shad, which had Iranian roots ( along with the title of the khagan's wife- khatun) and yabgu , of Tocharian origin. It is presumed that the khagan, khan, tegin, chor and tarkhan titles, as well as the name Turk itself, are also of Iranian origin. The bek title can be added here as well. In addition, the names of the early Turkic khagans : Bumin, Istemi, Muqan, Taspar and Nevar, are not of Turkic origin either.[5]

Many orientalists as Yu. A. Zuev, A. N. Bernstamm and D. G. Savinov argued about the Saka-Wusun origin of the Ashina clan.

References:


1. Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes, Peter B. Golden, page 20


2. Encyclopædia Britannica, Turkic peoples


3. THE PEOPLES OF THE STEPPE FRONTIER IN EARLY CHINESE SOURCES, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, 1998, University of British Columbia, page 53


4. Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes, Peter B. Golden, page 27-28


5. Khazaria in the Ninth andTenth Centuries, By Boris Zhivkov, page 23


Friday, December 16, 2016

Massagetae

Bulgars Massagetae in central Asia
Massagetae
The Massagetae were an ancient nomadic confederation who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia betwen the rivers Amu-Daria and Syr-Daria east of the Sea of Aral. They are know primarily from the works of ancient Greek authors as Strabo and Herodotus. At least some of their tribes were East Iranian speakers. Their neighbours were the Aspisi to the north, the Wusun(Isedones) to the east, Dahae and Scythians  to the west. To the south lay Khorasan/(Sogdia). The Massagetae was one of many tribal groups in the region north and east of the river Syr Darya (otherwise known as the River Tanais).

The Massagetae were similar to the Scythians in their dress and mode of living, they lived on their herds and fishing, milk was their main drink. They fought both on horseback and on foot, neither method being strange to them: they used bows and lances, but their favorite weapon was the battle-axe. According to Strabo, the Massagetae worshipped the sun and sacrificed horses to it.

Origin of Massagetae


Numerous hypotheses exist about the identity of the Massagetae and their ethnic background. Massagetae are believed to have been related to the Getae.[1] In Central Asian languages such as Middle Persian and Avestan, the prefix massa means "great", "heavy", or "strong".[2] Some authors as James P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair relate Massagetae with the Yuezhi: "(Greater) Yuezhi or in the earlier pronunciation d'ad-ngiwat-tieg, has been seen to equate with the Massagetae who occupied the oases and steppelands of West Central Asia in the time of Herodotus; here Massa renders an Iranian word for "Great", hence "Great Getae".[3][4] This identification was made by Alexander Cunningham and is supported by B.S. Dahiya (1980, 23), Edgar Knobloch (2001, 15), Zuev, Lozinski, Tolstov and others.[5][6] Dahiya wrote about the Massagetae and Thyssagetae : "The Chinese were right in stating that the Xiongnu were a part of the Yuezhi. These Guti people had two divisions, the Ta-Yue-Che and Siao-Yue-Che, exactly corresponding to the Massagetae and Thyssagetae of Herodotus... Thyssagetae, who are known as the Lesser Getae, correspond with the Xiao Yuezhi, meaning Lesser Yuezhi."(Dahiya 1980, 23).[7][8]

Customs of Massagetae


According to Herodotus:
"In their dress and mode of living the Massagetae resemble the Scythians. They fight both on [1.215]
Herodotus world map with Bulgars Massagetae
Herodotus world map
horseback and on foot, neither method is strange to them: they use bows and lances, but their favourite weapon is the battle-axe. Their arms are all either of gold or brass. For their spear-points, and arrow-heads, and for their battle-axes, they make use of brass; for head-gear, belts, and girdles, of gold. So too with the caparison of their horses, they give them breastplates of brass, but employ gold about the reins, the bit, and the cheek-plates. They use neither iron nor silver, having none in their country; but they have brass and gold in abundance." 
" Each man has but one wife, yet all the wives are held in common; for this is a custom of the Massagetae and not of the Scythians, as the Greeks wrongly say. Human life does not come to its natural close with this people; but when a man grows very old, all his kinsfolk collect together and offer him up in sacrifice; offering at the same time some cattle also. After the sacrifice they boil the flesh and feast on it; and those who thus end their days are reckoned the happiest. If a man dies of disease they do not eat him, but bury him in the ground, bewailing his ill-fortune that he did not come to be sacrificed. They sow no grain, but live on their herds, and on fish, of which there is great plenty in the Araxes. Milk is what they chiefly drink. The only god they worship is the sun, and to him they offer the horse in sacrifice; under the notion of giving to the swiftest of the gods the swiftest of all mortal creatures." [1.216]
At the close of the 4th century CE, Claudian wrote of Massagetae that they cruelly wound their horses so that they may drink their blood.

History of Massagetae


Massagetae were known as numerous and warlike nation. According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great of Persia met his death in a battle with the Massagetae living beyond Araxes river. In the year 530 B.C.  Cyrus the Great's army invaded the Scythian lands. Cyrus who had already beaten the Babylonians was victorious in his initial assault on the Massagetae. He captured the son of Massagetae queen Tomyris, Spargapises, who commits suicide. However the queen's forces promptly destroyed Cyrus' army and killed the Persian king.

About 515 B.C. Darius I invaded into the lands of nomadic Scythians. Generally Scythians were called Saka by Persians and the term Saka was used as a prefix to their tribal names. For example three groups of Saka/Scythians are listed on Darius' (522-486 BCE) inscriptions at Behistun (in north-western Iran) : Saka Haumavarga , Saka Tigrakhauda (translated as "pointed caps"), and Saka Paradraya. The Saka Tigrakhauda occupied open grasslands around the Aral Sea, in modern south-western Kazakhstan. The pointed caps they wear would be sized according to seniority, with the tallest being reserved for the chieftain. It is this group of Sakas that is most likely to be the Massagetae of Strabo.

In the 4th century B.C. Alexander the Great conquers the Persian empire and campaigned in the east. According to Sulimirski Massagetae adopted new military tactics of armoured cavalry from Macedonians and in the 4th-3rd centuries BC were able to subdue nearly all the nomad tribes north-east of Macedonian frontier including the Xiongnu who roamed the steppes further east up to the Chinese border. Xiongnu had to acknowledge the Massagetan suzerainty for about a century. But eventually Xiongnu defeated Massagetae and in 165 BC drove them westwards out of their lands.[9]

References:

[1] Leake, Jane Acomb (1967). The Geats of Beowulf: a study in the geographical mythology of the Middle Ages (illustrated ed.). University of Wisconsin Press. p. 68.
[2] Rishi, Weer Rajendra (1982). India & Russia: linguistic & cultural affinity. Roma. p. 95.
[3] Mallory, J. P.; Mair, Victor H. (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson. pages 98-99 
[4] Pazyrik - The Valley of the Frozen Tombs, John F. Haskins
[5] THE STRONGEST TRIBE, Yu. A. Zuev, page 33: "Massagets of the earliest ancient authors... are the Yuezhis of the Chinese sources"
[6] The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, Hyun Jin Kim, p. 201/note 79
[7] SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS, Number 127 October, 2003, The Getes,  page 22-24
[8] The glorious Gutians, Samar AbbasMarch 24, 2005
[9] Tadeusz Sulimirski - The Sarmatians,pages 81-82

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Xiongnu

Xiongnu
Xiongnu Empire
The Xiongnu were nomadic peoples  who lived north and north-west of China during the Qin (221-205 BC) and Han (205 BCE-220 CE) dynasties. At the end of the 3rd century BC they formed a tribal confederation and were able to dominate central Asian steppe for more than 500 years. They ruled over the steppes north of China, an area known later as Mongolia. The Xiongnu were a constant threat to China’s northern frontier and their repeated invasions prompted the erection of the Great Wall of China to defend China from the cavalry raids of the Xiongnu. Relations between the Han Chinese and the Xiongnu were complicated but eventually the Han and the Xiongnu achieved a peace agreement which included trade and marriage treaties and regular gifts to the Xiongnu in exchange for the recognition of the Great Wall as a mutual border. However the Great Wall of China slowed but did not stopped Xiongnu from raiding North China periodically. Eventually the Han emperor Wudi (140-86 BC) waged wars against nomadic Xiongnu and expeditions were sent to central Asia and Manchuria to outflank them.
defeating their previous overlord, the Yuezhi, the Xiongnu became a dominant power on the

Origin and early history of Xiongnu

Ordos Loop from where Huns and Bulgars originated
Ordos Loop


The earliest mention of the Xiongnu in Chinese sources dates to 318 BCE, it is a passage in the Basic Annals of Qin (Shiji 5: 207). The ethnic origin of the core Xiongnu tribes has been a subject of varied hypotheses. Xiongnu were driven north of Ordos across the Yellow River in 214 BCE in the time of the First Emperor of Qin. They were akin to people known earlier as Rong or Di who lived as sedentary inhabitants of the upland regions of Shaanxi and Shanxi between the Wei and Fen valleys and the steppe and their conversion to pastoral nomadism was a consequence of the spread of this new military technique across the Eurasian steppes from west to east from around 800 BCE onward. The actual linguistic affinities of the Xiongnu are difficult to determine. Their language may have been unrelated to any known language or it may have belonged to the isolated Yeniseian family of languages, of which Ket is now the sole survivor, as first suggested by Louis Ligeti (1950) and explored further in Pulleyblank (1962). Although the hypothesis of Pulleyblank seems to be well-founded it is by no means certain that all of the tribal groups of the confederation belonged to the same linguistic group. In 2000, Alexander Vovin reanalyzed Pulleyblank's argument and found further support for it by utilizing the most recent reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology by Starostin and Baxter, and a single Chinese transcription of a sentence in the language of the Jie (a member tribe of the Xiongnu confederacy). Previous Turkic interpretations of that sentence do not match the Chinese translation as precisely as the interpretation using Yeniseian grammar.
Ordos region from where Huns and Bulgars originated
Ordos region

According to an ancient and probably legendary Chinese records they were of the same origin as the Chinese and descended from China's first dynasty, the Xia Dynasty. Others believed that they were Siberian branch of the Mongol race, but also it has been debated Turkic, Yeniseian, Tocharian, Iranian and Uralic origin or some mixture. According to Pulleyblank although there were probably already Mongolian speakers in Mongolia when the Chinese first reached the steppe frontier, namely the people known as (Eastern) Hu , the Xiongnu were quite distinct from them. The Xiongnu first appear as nomads at the Ordos Desert.

According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian Xiongnu originated in the Ordos region in what is now Inner Mongolia. He claimed that Xiongnu descended from a Chinese cultural hero in the mythical past and gave us the names by which the Xiongnu were known to the Chinese before the unification of China in the 3rd century BC : Chunwei, Shanrong, Xianyun, and Xunyu. Scholars have identified the names Chunwei, Xunyu and Xiongnu with the later name Hun. The relation between Xiongnu and the Huns who invaded Europe in the 4th century CE was discussed on my article Origin of Bulgarians and will be explore further at the end of this post. The name is the same and there is certainly a lineal connection between groups of Huns (namely Chieh/Jie) from the former Xiongnu confederation who moved westwards in the first half of the 4th century CE and the Huns who a bit later appeared in Eastern Europe. There is no doubt that apart from the ruling tribes that bore the name Hun, the European Huns also included other tribes with different ethnic affinities.

By the Warring States period three groups of barbarian people (Hu) were distinguished by the Chinese: Rong in the west, Di in the north, and Yi in the east. Chinese historical sources have very little to tell us about the actual steppe frontier to the north and northwest before the end of the 4th century BCE. A group called Quanrong ( literally dog martial people) seems to be identical with early Xiongnu according to Sima Qian. The Di, sometimes differentiated into White Di and Red Di, were close neighbours of the Chinese state of Jin. The Eastern Hu as a whole were proto-Mongol in language, see Ligeti (1970), Pulleyblank (1983: 452–454).

The Xiongnu Empire


The Xiongnu tribes were destabilized in 215 BCE by the offensive campaign of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, a cruel tyrant who unified China in 221 BC. Qin sent the general Meng Tian to occupy and fortify the pastoral areas of the Ordos and to drive the Xiongnu and their shanyu Touman to the north. The first Xiongnu ruler whom we know by name, Touman, had been forced to move north because of pressure from Qin. Qin Shi Huangdi erected the famous Great Wall in order to ward off nomadic Hu. It is said that thousands of workers perished while building the Wall. The Qin dynasty collapsed after a rebellion and China fell into a period of anarchy.

Xiongnu and Han Chinese wars drove the Huns west
Xiongnu and Han Empires

In 209 B.C.E., just three years before the founding of the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu were brought together in a powerful confederacy under a new shanyu Modu who killed his father Touman. The reason for the creation of the Xiongnu confederation remains unclear. Probably the unification of China prompted the nomads to rally around a political center in order to strengthen their position. Modu expanded the empire on all sides. To the north he conquered a number of nomadic peoples, including the Dingling of southern Siberia. He crushed the power of the Donghu of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria, as well as the Yuezhi in the Gansu corridor. The Xiongnu's political unity transformed them into a formidable enemy. Xiongnu crushed the Emperor Gaozu, forced him to sign a humiliating treaty in 198, and reoccupied the Ordos. Before the death of Modu in 174 B.C.E., the Xiongnu had driven the Yuezhi from the Gansu corridor completely and asserted their presence in the Western Regions in modern Xinjiang. Then Modu subdued the Wusun, Loulan, the Hu Jie and “twenty-six peoples” of the region. In 162 the shanyu Laoshang again crushed the Yuezhi refugees in the valley of the Ili and forced them to migrate to the southwest into sedentary Iranian-speaking Central Asia (Sogdiana, Bactriana). At that time all of Central Asia recognized, at least formally, the suzerainty of the Xiongnu: “whenever a Xiongnu envoy appeared in the region [i.e., western Central Asia] carrying credentials from the Shanyu, he was escorted from state to state and provided with food, and no one dared to detain him or cause him any difficulty” (Shiji, tr. Watson, p. 244). Nevertheless, their control was primarily exercised in the northeast of the Tarim Basin and Turfan, with the Lob Nor as a western frontier: The Office of the Commander in Charge of Slaves, responsible for raising taxes, was established near Karashahr (Qarašahr). Control of the West seems to have been limited to the collection of tribute from the Wusun (Dzungaria) and Kangju (middle Syr Darya and Sogdiana), while further to the south the Yuezhi (Bactriana) were hostile to them.

The Marriage Treaty System and  War with Han China


Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (r. 221 - 206 B.C.E.), who unified China under the Qin, built the Great Wall, extending 2600 miles from modern Gansu Province in the west to the Liaodong Peninsula in the east, to defend China from the raids of the Xiongnu. In the winter of 200 B.C.E., following a siege of Taiyuan, Emperor Gao personally led a military campaign against Modu. At the battle of Baideng, he was ambushed reputedly by 300,000 elite Xiongnu cavalry. The emperor was cut off from supplies and reinforcements for seven days, only narrowly escaping capture.

After the defeat at Pingcheng, the Han emperor abandoned a military solution to the Xiongnu threat. Instead, in 198 B.C.E., the courtier Liu Jing  was dispatched for negotiations. The peace settlement eventually reached between the parties included a Han princess given in marriage to the shanyu (called heqin 和親 or "harmonious kinship"); periodic gifts of silk, liquor and rice to the Xiongnu; equal status between the states; and the Great Wall as mutual border.

This first treaty set the pattern for relations between the Han and the Xiongnu for some 60 years. Up to 135 B.C.E., the treaty was renewed no less than nine times, with an increase of "gifts" with each subsequent agreement. In 192 B.C.E., Modu even asked for the hand of the widowed Empress Lü. His son and successor, the energetic Jiyu, known as the Laoshang Shanyu, continued his father's expansionist policies. Laoshang succeeded in negotiating with Emperor Wen, terms for the maintenance of a large-scale government-sponsored market system.

While the Xiongnu benefited from the marriage treaties, from the Chinese perspective they were costly and ineffective. Laoshang showed that he did not take the peace treaty seriously. On one occasion his scouts penetrated to a point near Chang'an. In 166 B.C.E. he personally led 140,000 cavalry to invade Anding, reaching as far as the imperial retreat at Yong. In 158 B.C.E., his successor sent 30,000 cavalry to attack the Shang commandery and another 30,000 to Yunzhong.

The status quo then prevailed until 134 BCE, a period during which the Xiongnu secured their pre-eminence over the steppe societies of East Asia. This period was brought to an end by the initiative of the Chinese, who expelled the Xiongnu to the north of the Gobi in 121 and 119 BCE. Between the years 115 and 60 BCE, the weakening of the Xiongnu confederation gave rise to a struggle between the Chinese and the Xiongnu for control of the western regions. The principal events of this struggle included the missions of Zhang Qian in search of alliances in 137 and 115 BCE, the raid on Farḡāna (Ferghana) by a Chinese army in 101 BCE, and the battles for control of the region of Turfan (Jushi) between 67 and 60 BCE. In 57 BCE the disintegration of the confederation led to its division between five and then two shanyu, one in the South (Huhanye) who submitted to China in 53 BCE, the other (Zhizhi) controlling the North and West. The latter, finally taking refuge in Kangju, carved out a kingdom in the valley of the Talas and was defeated there by the Chinese general Zhen Tang in 36 BCE, an episode that marks the farthest advance of the Xiongnu and Chinese armies into the Iranian-speaking West.

The ensuing peaceful period ended when the Xiongnu took advantage of troubles in China (reign of Wang Mang, 9-23 CE) and widely recaptured control of the West before once again splitting into two groups, the Southern Xiongnu and the Northern Xiongnu, in 48 CE. The first group took refuge in the north of China in 50 CE, giving rise to areas of Xiongnu population within the frontiers between Taiyuan and the Yellow River that would endure for several centuries. Their last shanyu disappeared at the beginning of the 3rd century, but the Xiongnu, though highly sinicized, preserved their identity and played a major role in the disturbances and plundering that put an end to the Jin dynasty in North China at the beginning of the 4th century. 

While the Northern Xiongnu for a time succeeded in playing a role in the West (their armies intervened at Khotan and Yarkand after 61 CE), China regained control of the region of Turfan in 74 CE and chased them from Mongolia: the shanyu took refuge in the Ili valley in 91 CE, while many Northern Xiongnu tribes surrendered to China and were settled within the frontiers. The Northern Xiongnu, with several thousand men, continued to intervene at Hami and in the region of Turfan throughout the first half of the 2nd century. We know nothing of their fate: in the Wei Lue, written in the middle of the 3rd century, the Xiongnu are completely absent from the plateau north of the Tianshan.

Southern Xiongnu


While we hear nothing more about the Northern Xiongnu after the begining of the 2nd century CE, Southern Xiongnu had a longer history. Economically, they relied almost totally on Han assistance and tensions between settled Chinese and nomadic people were evident. For example there was a large scale rebellion in 94 CE led by Anguo Shanyu against the Han. In 188 the Shanyu was murdered by his own people for agreeing to help Chinese by sending troops to suppress a rebellion in Hebei. Many of the Xiongnu feared that it would set a precedent for unending military service to the Han court. The murdered chanyu's son Yufuluo succeeded him, but was then overthrown by the same rebellious faction in 189 and settled down with his followers at province Shanxi. In 195, he died and was succeeded by his brother Hucuquan. The Xiongnu aristocracy in Shanxi changed their surname from Luanti to Liu for prestige reasons, claiming that they were related to the Han imperial clan through the old intermarriage policy. After Hucuquan, in A.D. 215-216, the southern Xiongnu were partitioned into five local tribes.

Huchuquan Chanyu assumed the patronymic name Liu, thus showing his imperial ancestry. In 304, Liu Yuan became Chanyu of the Five Hordes. In 308, declared himself emperor and founded the Han Zhao Dynasty. Between 311 and 316 CE his son and successor Liu Cong captured two Chinese Emperors from the Jin dynasty, humiliated and finally executed them. North China came under Xiongnu rule. In 318 the Xiongnu prince Liu Yao moved the Xiongnu-Han capital from Pingyang to Chang'an and renamed the dynasty as Zhao. Liu Yao wanted to end the linkage with Han and explicitly restore the linkage to the great Xiongnu chanyu Maodun. However, the eastern part of north China came under the control of a rebel Xiongnu-Han general of Jie ancestry named Shi Le. Liu Yao and Shi Le fought a long war until 329, when Liu Yao was captured in battle and executed. North China was ruled by Shi Le's Later Zhao dynasty for the next 20 years. The "Liu" Xiongnu remained active in the north for at least another century.

Archaeology


Political center of the Xiongnu state was in Mongolia and almost all of the Xiongnu kings buried in Mongolia. In the 1920s, Pyotr Kozlov's excavations of the royal tombs at the Noin-Ula burial site in northern Mongolia that date to around the first century CE provided a glimpse into the lost world of the Xiongnu. Other archaeological sites have been unearthed in Inner Mongolia and elsewhere; they represent the Neolithic and historical periods of the Xiongnu's history. Those included the Ordos culture, many of them had been identified as the Xiongnu cultures. The region was occupied predominantly by peoples showing Mongoloid features, known from their skeletal remains and artifacts. Portraits found in the Noin-Ula excavations demonstrate other cultural evidences and influences, showing that Chinese and Xiongnu art have influenced each other mutually. Well-preserved bodies in Xiongnu and pre-Xiongnu tombs in the Mongolian Republic and southern Siberia show both Mongoloid and Caucasian features. Analysis of skeletal remains from sites attributed to the Xiongnu provides an identification of dolichocephalic Mongoloid, ethnically distinct from neighboring populations in present-day Mongolia. Russian and Chinese anthropological and craniofacial studies show that the Xiongnu were physically very heterogenous, with six different population clusters showing different degrees of Mongoloid and Caucasoid physical traits.

Xiongnu and the Huns


Could these Xiongnu have given rise to the Huns who appeared on the Volga from the year 370 CE before they invaded Europe? The question is highly controversial and has been the subject of numerous works since de Guignes first proposed the identity of the two groups in 1758.

First, we can prove that the names are indeed identical. In 313 it was a Sogdian merchant writing in the Gansu corridor who, in a letter to a correspondent at Samarqand, described with precision the plundering of the Southern Xiongnu in China and called them Xwn, a name which must be connected to that of the Huns (Henning, 1948). In addition one must also cite the Buddhist translations of Zhu Fahu, a Yuezhi of Dunhuang, who in 280 CE translating from Sanskrit to Chinese, rendered Hūṇa by Xiongnu, and then did the same in 308 in another  translation.  

Moreover, the Wei shu, taking up information precisely dated to 457, states: “Formerly, the Xiongnu killed the king (of Sogdiana) and took the country. King Huni is the third ruler of the line”. This leads us to place the “Xiongnu” invasion of Sogdiana in the first half of the 5th century. Here, too, there is hardly any reason to doubt this direct testimony stemming from the report of an official Sogdian envoy in China (Enoki, 1955) Also, the personal names found in the Sogdian caravaneer graffiti of the Upper Indus (3rd to 5th century CE) frequently include the first or last name Xwn, whereas it no longer exists in the later texts. This reflects the presence of Hun invaders in Sogdiana and the fusion of the populations (la Vaissière, 2004) during a precise period of time.

From an archaeological point of view, there are now few doubts that the Hunnic cauldrons from Hungary are indeed derived from the Xiongnu ones. Moreover, they were used and buried on the same places, the banks of rivers, a fact which proves the existence of a cultural continuity between the Xiongnu and the Huns (Erdy, 1994; de la Vaissière, 2005b). 

The Huns of Central Asia thus consciously succeeded the Xiongnu and established themselves as their heirs, and an authentic Xiongnu element probably existed within them, although it was probably very much in the minority within a alliance with other people. This is the only hypothesis that accounts for all of the known facts given the current state of our information. Indeed we cannot neglect the fact what we read in ancient sources: 

" swarms of Huns and monstrous Massagetae filled the whole earth with slauther"
( St Jerome, page 182 here

or, the western Huns were actually two groups of people, Huns and Massagetae.  

to be continued...


Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Huns

Huns - short history


Huns were a nomadic pastoralist people who invaded southeastern Europe 370 AD and during the next seven decades built up an enormous empire there and in central Europe. Appearing from beyond the Volga River some years after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the Volga and the Don rivers, and then quickly overthrew the empire of the Ostrogoths between the Don and the Dniester. About 376 they defeated the Visigoths living in what is now approximately Romania and thus arrived at the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire.

As warriors the Huns inspired almost unparalleled fear throughout Europe. They were amazingly accurate mounted archers, and their complete command of horsemanship, their ferocious charges and unpredictable retreats, and the speed of their strategical movements brought them overwhelming victories.
Huns Bulgars Empire
Hun Empire

Between 395-398 CE, the Huns overran the Roman territories of Thrace and Syria, destroying cities and farmlands in their raids but showing no interest in settling in the regions.

Their pressure on surrounding tribes, and on Rome, continued as they raided at will and without restraint. In December of 406 CE, the Vandals crossed the frozen Rhine River and invaded Gaul to escape the Huns and brought the remnants of many other tribes along with them. In 408 CE the chief of one group of Huns, Uldin, completely ransacked Thrace and, as Rome could do nothing to stop them militarily, they tried to pay them for peace. Uldin, however, demanded too high a price, and so the Romans opted to buy off his subordinates. This method of keeping the peace was successful and would become the preferred practice for the Romans in dealing with the Huns from then on.

It is no surprise that the Romans chose to pay off the Huns for peace rather than face them on the field. To emphasize Ammianus' description of the Hun's tactics in war, already cited above:

"they fight in no regular order of battle, but by being extremely swift and sudden in their movements, they disperse, and then rapidly come together again in loose array, spread havoc over vast plains, and flying over the rampart, they pillage the camp of their enemy almost before he has become aware of their approach."

They were expert horsemen, described as seeming to be one with their steeds; they were rarely seen dismounted and even carried on negotiations from the backs of their horses. Neither the Romans nor the so-called barbarian tribes had ever encountered an army like the Huns.

For half a century after the overthrow of the Visigoths, the Huns extended their power over many of the Germanic peoples of central Europe and fought for the Romans. By 432 the leadership of the various groups of Huns had been centralized under a single king, Rua, or Rugila. When Rua died in 434 he was succeeded by his two nephews, Bleda and Attila. The joint rulers negotiated a peace treaty at Margus (Pozarevac) with the Eastern Roman Empire, by which the Romans agreed to double the subsidies they had been paying the Huns. The Romans apparently did not pay the sums stipulated in the treaty, and in 441 Attila launched a heavy assault on the Roman Danubian frontier, advancing almost to Constantinople  and sacked the cities of the province of Illyricum, which were very profitable Roman trade centers. They then further violated the Treaty of Margus by riding on to that city and destroying it. The Roman emperor Theodosius II (401-450 CE) then declared the treaty broken and recalled his armies from the provinces to stop the Hun rampage.

In 447 Attila, for unknown reasons, made his second great attack on the Eastern Roman Empire. He devastated the Balkans and drove south into Greece as far as Thermopylae.

Since Ammianus’ time the Huns had acquired huge sums of gold as a result of their treaties with the Romans as well as by way of plunder and by selling their prisoners back to the Romans. This influx of wealth altered the character of their society. The military leadership became hereditary in Attila’s family, and Attila himself had autocratic powers in peace and war alike. He administered his huge empire by means of “picked men” (logades), whose main function was the government of and the collection of food and tribute from the subject peoples who had been assigned to them by Attila.

In 451 Attila invaded Gaul but was defeated by Roman and Visigothic forces at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, or, according to some authorities, of Maurica. This was Attila’s first and only defeat. In 452 the Huns invaded Italy and sacked several cities, but famine and pestilence compelled them to leave. In 453 Attila died; his many sons divided up his empire and at once began quarreling among themselves. They then began a series of costly struggles with their subjects, who had revolted, and were finally routed in 455 by a combination of Gepidae, Ostrogoths, Heruli, and others in a great battle on the unidentified river Nedao in Pannonia.

The literary evidence for the Huns


The earliest systematic description of the Huns is that given by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, writing c. 395. They were apparently primitive pastoralists who knew nothing of agriculture. They had no settled homes and no kings; each group was led by primates, as Ammianus called them. Whether or not they had a single overall leader in the 4th century is still a matter of dispute. The savage hordes of the Huns were demonized earlier. In 364 Hilary of Poitiers predicted the coming of the Antichrist within one generation. After the battle of Adrianople Ambrose wrote that "the end of the world is coming upon us". Behind the Huns the Devil was lurking. Jordanes tells us a curious story about the origin of the Huns:

"Filimer, king of the Goths, son of Gadaric the Great, who was the fifth in succession to hold the rule of the Getae after their departure from the island of Scandza,--and who, as we have said, entered the land of Scythia with his tribe,--found among his people certain witches, whom he called in his native tongue Haliurunnae. Suspecting these women, he expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to wander in solitary exile afar from his army. (122) There the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness, bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps,--a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech. Such was the descent of the Huns who came to the country of the Goths." [1]

The Huns were not a people like other peoples. They were fiendish ogres roaming over the desolate plains beyond the borders of Christian world from where they brought death and destruction to the faithful. Even after the fall of the empire of Attila, the most famous king of the Huns, the people who were believed to have descended from the Huns were in alliance with the devil.

Ancient authors seem to know next to nothing about the origin of the Huns. Instead of facts they serve us with equations. They used the names of Scythians and Massagetae interchangeably with that of the Huns. Themistius (317-390), Claudian (370-404), and later Procopius (500-560) called the Huns Massagetae. However the Huns, not the Massagetae, attacked the Alans, who threw themselves upon the Goths. The Gaul called the Huns by their name, the Greek called them Massagetae. Eastern writers looked on the Huns as "bandits" and called them Scythians, a name that in 4-5 century had lost its specific meaning. Eunapius only suggest their identity with Herodotus's Royal Scythians who dwell near the Ister (Danube). Ammianus Marcellinus hated all barbarians, but for him the Huns were the worst. His descriptions of the Huns are distorted by hatred and fear:

" None of them ever ploughs or touches a colter. Without a permanent seats, without a home, without fixed laws or rites, they all roam about, always like a fugitives... restless roving over mountains and through woods. They cover themselves with clothes sewed together from the skins of forest rodents."...

"...they neither require fire nor well flavored food, but live on the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it between their own thighs and the backs of their horses."

" There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety of dream. And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under kingly authority, but are contented with the irregular government of their chiefs, and under their lead they force their way through all obstacles...."

Archaeological evidence confirms deformation of Hunnic children and Ammianus Marcellinus, writing about fifty years before Attila’s reign, describes a barbaric practice: "At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children are deeply marked by an iron..." Jordanes, an historian writing about one hundred years after Attila’s death, elaborates:

"Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds."

It was their cruelty, and their military prowess, which made the Huns a conquering people even before Attila became their king. As Ammianus Marcellinus observes, at the beginning of his history:
"The people called Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live beyond the Sea of Azov, on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a race savage beyond all parallel."

Huns Warfare 


The Huns were expert horsemen, they were rarely seen dismounted and even carried on negotiations from the backs of their horses. Neither the Romans nor the so-called barbarian tribes had ever encountered an army like the Huns. They seemed to have been bred for mounted warfare and used the bow with great effect. Their ability to appear out of nowhere, attack like a whirlwind, and vanish away made them incredibly dangerous opponents who seemed impossible to defeat or defend against.

In warfare they used the bow and javelin. Early writers such as Ammianus (followed by Thompson) stated that they used primitive, bone-tipped arrowheads, but this claim has been contested by archaeological findings in Hunnic tombs, which have exclusively yielded iron arrowheads. Maenchen-Helfen states: "Had the Huns been unable to forge their swords and cast their arrow-heads, they never could have crossed the Don. The idea that the Hun horsemen fought their way to the walls of Constantinople and to the Marne with bartered and captured swords is absurd." They also fought using iron swords and lassos in close combat. According to archaeological data the Hun sword was a long(90 cm), straight, double-edged sword of early Sassanian style. These swords were hung from a belt using the scabbard-slide method, which kept the weapon vertical.The Huns also employed a smaller short sword (50–60 cm) or large dagger which was hung horizontally across the belly. A symbol of status among the Huns was a gilded bow. Sword and dagger grips also were decorated with gold.

With the arrival of the Huns, a tradition of using more bone laths in composite bows arrived in Europe. Bone laths had long been used in the Levantine and Roman tradition, two to stiffen each of the two siyahs (the tips of the bow), for a total of four laths per bow. (The Scythian and Sarmatian bows, used for centuries on the European steppes until the arrival of the Huns, had no such laths.) A style that arrived in Europe with the Huns (after centuries of use on the borders of China), was stiffened by two laths on each siyah, and additionally reinforced on the grip by three laths, for a total of seven per bow.

The main body of Hun armies consisted of light-armed cavalry equipped with big (120–150 cm) and powerful composite bows that were the Hun principal weapon of offence. The Huns, including their leaders, were particularly noted for their great skill of archery. The bow served, too, as a badge of power among the Huns. This is confirmed by the fact that among their high nobility there were in use models of the arm outfitted with golden end laths, the so-called "golden bows", playing a very prestigious social role. The Hun warriors were dressed in heavy leather greased with animal fat, making their battle dress both supple and rain resistant. They wore soft leather boots that were excellent for riding but probably useless for foot travel. Speaking of Hun arrows, Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI, 2, 9) refers solely to those provided with bone heads skilfully attached to shafts. Bone arrowheads were widespread among the Xiongnu of Central Asia. Huns also made use of metal (iron) arrowheads and, in fact, the Huns even brought with themselves new types of metal arrowheads. There is an opinion that arrows shot from Hun bows could pierce through armour at a distance of 100 m. One more important offensive arm, very typical for nomadic peoples of Eurasia, was the lasso, which the Huns threw on their opponents at a middle range. Heavy armour did not spread to any considerable degree in the bulk of Hun troops because of their tactics of mobility and fight from a distance.

Hun ordinary soldiers had curved fur-caps ("galeri incurvi": Amm. Marc. XXXI, 2, 6) that served as protectors to their heads. The Huns used whips as riding equipment but also as a weapon of close combat. The whips were also used to give the prearranged tactical signals. The whip was also esteemed as a symbol of high social status and power.

The Hun saddles were rigid wooden construction with the high front and rear arches allowing the Hun riders to have a firm seat on horseback when riding at full speed and shooting arrows both forward and backwards without any problem. The Hun cavalry always charged first and did that with swift movement using a loose battle formation. According to Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI, 2, 8–9) one can distinguish two main phases of the Huns’ tactics:

1. initial charge by the deep loose formation accompanied by a terrible war cry and with intensive shooting bows at the enemies from a distance

2. middle-range and hand-to-hand combat, when the Huns, moving fast through the battle field threw the lassos on their foes and face to face fight with swords.

Very usual stratagem for the European Huns was a feigned retreat to deceive and fatigue their foes, which was then followed by a sudden counterattack. While retreating, they shot the bows backwards with so high accuracy that their persecutors, not expecting such a tactic, had serious losses both in killed and wounded. Two other favorite stratagems of the Huns were surrounding the enemy order and laying ambushes. Once again should be noted that the Huns preferred to fight from a distance, not in close combat. Beyond any doubt, their strategy and tactics went back again to military practices of the Xiongnu. The outcome of battle was decided not in hand-to-hand-combat, but in methodical and very efficient shooting at the enemy from afar, i. e. with the least losses for themselves.

Hun Religion


That the Huns had shamans is certain.

The Hunnic method of deliberate foreknowing was scapulimancy. Attila’s haruspices examined the entrails of cattle and certain streaks in the bone that had been scraped. In the Sarmatoid cemeteries at Vrevskil, south-west of Tashkent, and Lavyandak, near Bukhara, both of them datable to the last centuries B.C. , were shoulder blades of sheep, one of them scorched, found. If they had been used for divination, they would point to an Eastern, non-Iranian element. The Huns could not have borrowed scapulimancy from their neighbors and subjects in Hungary and the western steppes. In China it had been practiced since pre-Shang times. There can be no doubt that the scapulimancy of the Huns was of Eastern origin.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Dulo clan of Attila the Hun

Dulo clan or the House of Dulo was the ruling dynasty of the Hunno-Bulgars [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] of states in various parts of Eastern Europe, including Old Great Bulgaria (632 AD), Volga Bulgaria (until the 13th century) and Danube Bulgaria (681 AD). The origins of the Bulgars and Dulo clan are not known precisely, there are many theories about their origin, but it is generally considered that it is intimately related to the origin and activity of the Huns.[8][9] Some researchers point out that the name Dulo is the same as the name Tulo, a tribal division of the Western Turks,[10] but P. Golden considers such connection as speculative[11] and admits that Attilid affinities of the Bulgars indeed may have existed.[12]
Symbol of Dulo clan of Attila the Hun from which Bulgars rulers descended
Symbol of  Dulo clan


The most what is known about the House of Dulo is written in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans.[13] The first two rulers, Avitohol and Irnik, are usually identified by many historians as Attila and his third son Ernak although no documents exist to support this identification. Ernak has often been identified with Ирникъ in the Bulgarian Princes’ ListScholars have proposed many theories, but the origin and meaning of the name Dulo remain obscure. According to one hypothesis the name Dulo is distorted form of the name of Attila.[14][15][16]

Kubrat (605 AD-665 AD), the first historical member of the House of Dulo, was a Utigurs Bulgar. In 632 AD Kubrat founded Old Great Bulgaria on the territory of modern Ukraine unifying different Bulgar tribes and defeating the Avars.[17] During the second half of the 7th century Kubrat's sons split up the Bulgar family and spread over Europe, from the Volga to the shadow of Vesuvius: Batbayan (Ukraine), Kotrag (Volga Bulgaria), Kuber (Balkan Macedonia), Asparuh (Danube Bulgaria) and also Alcek (Italy).[18]

Asparuh of the House of Dulo founded Danube Bulgaria in the year 681, establishing the First Bulgarian Empire south of the Danube after defeating the Romans in the Battle of Ongal.

Tervel (700-721AD) of the House of Dulo played an important role in the history of Europe when in 717-718 AD he defeated Arabs and stopped the Arab siege of Constantinople.

Sevar was the last known ruler of Bulgaria from the House of Dulo, he reigned 738–754 AD. According to David Marshall Lang Sevar is the last ruler of the Dulo dynasty, with him died out the lineage of Attila the Hun.[19] The successor of the last Dulo was a boyar named Kormisosh, of the House of Vokil (or Uokil).[20][21][22][23][24]

Etymology of the name Dulo


Omeljan Pritsak connects the name Dulo with the name of the Xiongnu ruling dynasty Tu-ko (EMC d'uo'klo) by suggesting that the name Vihtun from the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans is the famous Xiongnu emperor Modun.[25][26] According to another hypothesis the name Dulo is distorted form of the name of Attila.[27]

List of Dulo Clan rulers


Translated into English, the List runs as follows:

Avitokhol lived 300 years, his clan Dulo, and his years dilom tvirem:

Irnik lived 100 years and 5 years, his clan Dulo, and his years dilom tuirem:

Gostun as regent 2 years, his clan Ermi, and his years dokhs tvirem:

Kurt reigned 60 years, his clan Dulo, and his years shegor vechem:

Bezmer 3 years, his clan Dulo, and his years shegor vechem.

These 5 princes held their rule, with shorn heads, on the other side of the Danube for 515 years; and after, there came Prince Isperikh to this side of the Danube where they are now.

Isperikh prince, 60 years and 1 year, his clan Dulo, his years her enialem:

Tervel 21 years, his clan Dulo, and his years tekuchitem tvirem:

. . . 28 years, his clan Dulo, and his years dvansh ekhtem:

Sevar 15 years, his clan Dulo, and his years tokh altom:

Kormisosh 17 years, his clan Vokil, and his years shegor tvirem: this prince changed the race of Dulo, that is to say Vikhtum :

Vinekh 7 years, his clan Ukil, and his years shegor alem:

Telets 3 years, his clan Ugain, and his years somor altem, he too of another race:

Umor 40 days, his clan Ukil, and his [years] dilom tutom.

References for Dulo clan and Bulgars Huns:


[1] The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, 2013, Cambridge University Press, Hyun Jin Kim

[2] Early Mediaeval identity of the Bulgarians, Cafer Saatchi, page 3 : " The early Byzantine texts use the names of Huns, Bulgarians, Kutrigurs and Utrigurs as interchangeable terms. There the Bulgarians are represented as identical, they are a part of Huns or at least have something common with them. The khans Avtiochol and Irnik, listed in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans today are identified with Attila and Ernach."

[3] SOME REMARKS ON THE CHINESE "BULGAR", 2004, SANPING CHEN: page 8 :" In fact contemporary European sources kept equating the Bulgars with the Huns. At the very least, the Hun-Bulgar connection was much more tangible than the Hun-Xiongnu identification. "

[4] Steven Runciman, Book I: THE CHILDREN OF THE HUNS

[5] Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, Romilly James, page 45 : " The Bulgarians seem to have been in origin Huns, who may well have formed part, and survived as a rump, of the hordes of Attila in the fifth century. ... the so called Onogur Bulgarians are found in large numbers somewhere between the Kuban and the Volga rivers..."

[6] The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4, Edward Gibbon, page 537: " And both Procopius and Agathias represent Kutrigurs and Utigurs as tribes of Huns. There can be no doubt Kutrigurs, Utigurs and Bulgars belong to the same race as the Huns of Attila and spoke tongues closely related, - were in fact Huns. They had all been under Attila's dominion"

[7] Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire Jennifer Lawler, " Utigurs - Hunnic tribe that lived on the east steppes of Don, related to the Bulgars", page 296

[9] The Tale of the Prophet Isaiah, Ivan Biliarsky, page 255 : " Who, after all, were Avitokhol and Irnik? Among historians, there is almost unanimity they were Attila, the ruler of the Huns, and his son Ernack."

[10] The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, 2013, Cambridge University Press, Hyun Jin Kim, page 59

[11] Golden, Peter B. (2012), Oq and Oğur~Oğuz* (PDF), Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers University, pp. footnote 37

[12]  Nomads and Their Neighbours in the Russian Steppe, Peter B. Golden, page 71

[13] Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria, Ivan Biliarsky, page 218

[14] Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The world of the Huns, page 415: "Ernak has often been identified with Ирникъ in the Bulgarian Princes’ List."

[15] The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, John Van Antwerp Fine, University of Michigan Press(2000), p. 66: "According to their traditions their ruling family, known as the house of Dulo, was descended from Attila the Hun. Though the scholars have advanced many theories, the origin and meaning of the name Dulo remain obscure."

[16] Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 11, р. 228

[17] Nicephori Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opuscula Historica, Carl G. De Boor (Editor)

[18] Steven Runciman, Book I: THE CHILDREN OF THE HUNS, стр. 21: "Thus the Bulgar family split up, and spread over Europe, from the Volga to the shadow of Vesuvius. It remains now only to consider the strongest branch of all, the only branch to survive the tempests of the centuries. Asperuch, less restless than his younger brothers, but more enterprising than his elders, moved along the Black Sea coast, across the great rivers of the Steppes, to the land of lagoons and marshes where the Danube joins the sea."

[19] The Bulgarians: from pagan times to the Ottoman conquest, David Marshall Lang, p. 49: "... and was the last of the great house of Dulo to occupy the throne, with him died out the lineage of Attila the Hun"

[20] A History of the Eastern Roman Empire, J. B. Bury, p 334

[21] Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans

[22] Transferred in Translation: Making a State in Early Medieval Bulgarian Genealogies, Antoaneta Granberg,University of Gothenburg

[23] Byzantium and Bulgaria, Panos Sophoulis
[24] Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, Florin Curta
[25] The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, 2013, Cambridge University Press, Hyun Jin Kim, page. 59
[26] Teoderico e i Goti tra oriente e occidente, Antonio Carile, page 28
[27] Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 11, р. 228