Hunok a selyemúton

Lecture In the last decade new publications and monographs had been printed about the history and civilization of the Huns. According to the new archaeology findings, analyses of the ancient Chinese chronicles and other Eastern historical sources, we must think over some theories of the people in question. It must be interesting to find out why there has been such a growing interest about them around. The Hun Empire –according to the new scientific results – was the biggest state in the ancient times. We know, that they existed as organized state for at least thousand years, so that was the state being on power for the longest period of time. The Huns created a well-organized state across Eurasia, from the Great Wall to the river Rhone, and they were able to control the vast territory. The empire collapsed in the 5th century AD, and they gradually assimilated in various steppe people in Inner Asia. Their descendants – Turkic, Turkish, Mongolian, Bulgarians, Hungarians and indirectly other nations– have preserved their special culture and civilization until now. So, let’s investigate, who were the Huns and where they came from? The Huns were the first well known people of the steppes, who had established a great empire in Eurasia, and had been ruling Asia and Europe for centuries. Eastern scholars – Mongolian, Chinese and some Russian archeologists – don’t distinguish Scythians from Huns, because of their similar material and intellectual culture. We know that the Hun Empire had been established at the surroundings of Yellow-river. Their archeological relics had been found until present-day Central-China, as for as the Wei-river, which served as border. We know, that they lived around that big river, and one centre could have been in the Yin-shan mountain. The Chinese chronicles reported their first deeds and battles. According to Sima Qian- the Chinese Herodotos – the ancestor of the Huns came from the Xia-dynasty, which was the first state formation in the territory of the present day Northern-China. Chinese scholars even think, that the Huns established their first dynasty that the Chinese claim to be their own. The above mentioned name, Xia can be read in Rigveda, as Dasa, that may refer to the Saka, or Scythians in Asia. So, the History of the Scythians and Huns are linked together on this point, too. According to newer views, the old nomad groups migrated from Central China to the territory of present-day Mongolia in the pre-Hunnic times. Archeologically, this is supported by the shape of the graves and items found in them, further by Sima Qian, who says that the ancestors of the Huns stem from Chun Wei, the last ruler of the Xia-dynasty who fled to the north from Central China. Sima Qian repeatly emphasizes close connections between the Xia-dynasty and the ancestral Huns mentioning –among others- that the Huns already before Mao tun had an approximately one-thousand-year-old history. Yu, the Great, who was the first Xia king, may have been of Hun origin, as the other heroes of ancient times in the early Chinese legends. The stories –like Yi, the archer- who rescued mankind from nine burning Suns, are unknown for Sinologues, but these are very popular among people with Inner Asian origin. So, as I mentioned above, the Huns original homeland was the banks of Yellow-river, and they established a special state-organization, that became the basis of the nomadic-state. Even the Mongolian empire in the 13th century used that form. We don’t know the detailed early history of the Huns, hereby I refer to Sima Qian in order to give the reason to it: “The Hun tribes sometimes divided into parts, sometimes they united, so it is impossible to write about the linage of the Hun leaders.” He also mentioned that the Hun Empire had been in existence for a thousand year before Touman (Tümen-or ten thousand), who died in 209 BC. That time was not a significant event in the history of Huns. Mao-tun (or Baatar-Heroe) killed his father and became the great king, or shan-yu, but nothing state or administrative change hadn’t been happened. Although, Mao-tun was the one of the biggest emperor of the written history, his father also used the title “great king” or shanyu. As the above mentioned Chinese sources proved the Huns had their own state from the very early period, although some European scholars stated, that it was created only in 209 BC. By the time they appeared in the Chinese sources, they already had organized state. In the opinion of the Chinese scholars, the Huns began to rule over the territory of the present Northern-Central-China in the 3rd millennium BC. So, the united Hun Empire had been in existence until 55 BC, but the smaller states survived and operated in Asia until the 5th century AD, and 6th century AD in Northern Caucasus. Concerning the territorial division we can see that the biggest extension of the Empire covered at least 10.000 km land from east to west, which included cities along the Silk Road, some parts of Tibet, and the Southern-Siberian forest belt. There is a very debated question concerning the history of the late Huns in the Carpathian-basin. That area was the centre of the Huns under Attila, who got the name “flagium Dei” or scourge of God. After he had died in 453, his big empire was divided into parts, and they lost the authority above the old centre, and the youngest son, Irnek or Ernak (Hungarian Csaba) returned to Scythia or to the Northern-Caucasus, where the Huns of Pontus lived. That was the cradle of the Hunarian people, we have the first record about it. According to the Hungarian historical sources, the first Hungarian leading-prince Arpad was descendant of Attila, the Hunnic king. Hun tribes remained in the Carpathian basin. It was impossible for them to withdraw all inhabitants entirely, and such a fertile land, as the Carpathian basin could not have been left uninhabited as the Hungarian scholars may think even now. According to the historical sources and tradition, the remnants of the Huns are the Szekely, who nowadays live in Eastern-Transylvanian and the tradition has remained among them as living, that they are the descendants of the Huns. European historians argued some questions on the history of the Huns. The most debated ones are solved, but remained some opened and unsolved questions, yet. The biggest problem was whether the Asian Huns and the European Huns are the same origin. Miklos Erdy presented 8 archeological connections (cauldron, diadems of noble women, partial horse burial, symbolic horse burials, etc.) , which proved the similarity. Nowadays, thanks to the huge amount of archeological findings, we know that these were the same ethnic group, but we say on the leading tribes, who determinate the political and economic life of the Nomadic Empire. Let us investigate the different names of Huns in the Chinese sources. During the historical periods, the Huns had different names in the Chinese chronicles, we found “xun-yun, xian-yun, kun, hu”, etc. But –as the Chinese scholars said - they have the same pronunciations: Hun, which has a historical background. Before 4th century BC there wasn’t united empire in China, so the independent states recorded Huns under various names, and the uniformed “xiong-nu” expression was started to be used in only from 318 BC. The scientists had debated the anthropological characters of them. Before the appearance of archeology, the philologists had thought, they were Mongoloid, but in the past hundred years a lot of Hun tombs had been discovered throughout Eurasia, so it is clear now, that the Huns were mostly Europid, and a minor part of them belonged to the Mongoloid race. We also have an important question: what kind of language they spoke. It is a very difficult and disputable question among linguists. In the last 150 years many kinds of theories had been created. During the 20th century, the Turcology dominated the field of Oriental Studies, so the scholars thought that the Huns had spoken a kind of Turkic language. Pritsak stated, that the language of the Huns was similar to the Chuvas. A few ones –mainly the Mongolian linguists - thought that the language in question was close to Mongolian. According to the new results, some linguists agree that the Hun language was the basis of the most Eurasian languages as Turkic, Mongolian and even Hungarian. The great genius of linguists, Szentkatolnai Bálint Gábor (who spoke at least 30 languages) said that the fact that Hungarian and Mongolian words and expressions were so closed had only one real explanation the two peoples lived together in the Hun Empire. The reconstruction of 600 Hunnic words, which can be found in the Chinese chronicle might solve the problem, but it has many difficulties. I think, it is better, if we think, that not only one group, but most Eurasian people more or less preserved the traces of the Hunnic language. Now let us investigate how the nomadic state came into existence, because this question hasn’t been investigated thoroughly. But it is a key to the investigation of the characters of nomadic states in Inner Asia. According to Vladimircov, there are two kinds of way of life existed in Inner Asia: forest and steppe. Only the steppe civilization was able to establish a big empire, the people, who lived in the forest belt, remained in clan society. As we can see nowadays, the basic formation of a society is family. That was the same way in the past, too, but they had been well-organized. Among pastoral families, during the Bronze Age, paternal line became dominant, but the forms of matriarch remained in use fragmentally, because the women had significant role in the household. Pastoral families didn’t live alone, first of all, not only two generations but more –at least three - lived together, and several big families composed a clan. Furthermore, the relatives of some allied families joined them, who became the member of the clan, but they had no right to have political power, so they weren’t able to take part in big assemblies. The leader had to be the strongest and the cleverest man, who was able to lead the whole inhabitants, and save them from an outside attack. He was always elected in the assembly of the clan, whose name is in Mongolian eye (or one). That was the so called steppe democracy, where the leader was chosen by personal abilities, because he was suitable for that position. The centre of the clan and also the tribe was the tent or yurt and the surroundings. His tent counted as middle or “horda/yurta/orta”. Beside the ordu, there must have been other kinds of centres in the steppe, we can find the following ones: kota or káta, balig, balgasun and tur-a. Those kinds of names have been used for centuries, from the Yellow-river to the Carpathian-basin, it may originate from the Hun period. The latest archeological result that the Mongolian archeologists connected urban life to the Hun period (2nd century BC-1st century AD), but in Inner Mongolia there are at least 500 city ruins discovered and identified, which date back into the Early Bronze Age, which shows that the steppe region had urban part. The encampments became the industrial and commercial centers, where the foreign traders came and exchanged goods, and the manufactures supply the external and internal markets. Their main products were leather clothes and wares, felt carpets, silver and golden ornaments, horse furniture, pots, cauldrons and of course, weapons. According to an old theory, which had been spreading among the European scientists in the 19th century said that Inner Asian nomadic people had no cities at all, and they lacked the economy. That information was based only one sentence of the Chapter 110, Shi Ji as follow: “They wander following the grass and water, they had no fixed cities”. That sentence refers to the way of life only of the Gobi people, who need to change places because of the spearse pasture land. We know that Mongolian nomads change their encampments up to 4 times a years, they don’t wandering without reason. Now, we must think over that, and can see how difficult kinds of systems existed there. The Inner Asian people, from the time of Scythians had skill in blacksmiths: they produced frightful weapons, objects used in everyday life, and of course, luxury goods. Chinese people learned bronze casting from them. The technology knowledge of the blacksmith contributed to their superiority in the region. It is true, that Huns sometimes invaded Chinese peasants or villages for robbing goods, when the steppe had a bad harvest or epidemic broke out mainly in springtime that time Huns robbed foods. But these poor peasants had no gold or wealth, to make their northern neighbor rich. Being it thus, from where was the great wealth of the Huns from. First of all, we must know, that time horse meant the military top technology, that’s why the price was high. They gathered great amounts of money from horse trading. Secondly, in the territory of Huns were rich mines of gold and silver, (e.g. Altai mountain, means Golden)where they got huge amount of raw materials. Thirdly, they controlled the Silk Road, where they gathered customs from traders and got additional money from guarding the caravans. So, we can state, that industry and trade were the two most important parts of the Hun economy. So, the above mentioned clans, who allied with each other in different ways, formed the first real political unit, the tribe. I would mention the two most important alliances: marriage and the system of “sworn-brothers”. According to the historical sources the rules were much stickled, when they concluding allies. Inner Asian steppe societies had two kinds of marriage systems: levirate, where the widow remained in the family, and got a new husband among their previous brother- in-law. This kind of custom saved the position of women in the clan. The second type was the so called “kuda” marriage, where men from one tribe always brought wives from always the same tribes chosen for the purpose. The same happened in Chinggis khan’s clan in the second half of the 12th century. The general marriage custom was exogamy, so Eurasian nomadic people never chose wives from their own tribe, and preferably they went far from home in order to get one. The second form of alliance was the greatest organizing power of the steppe, which contributed to the foundation of the state. The leaders of the tribes from various reasons –military, friendship, establishing state etc.- allied for a certain time or for all their lives. When the latter happened, they took oath. Using that ancient rite the tribal leaders established nomadic state – as the Hungarian Emil Tallos’s thinks – and the points of oath was the first constitution of the nomadic state. But that time writing had no important role in the society, so the leaders preserved the oath or constitution in their memories. The tribe leaders cut their arms and their pouring blood was gathered in one cup. They used different kinds of vessels; one was a skull in the Hun period, as the Han shu recorded. They poured wine or some other drink, mixed with the blood, and then everybody drank from it. Drinking each other’s blood meant, that they became brothers and never had right to separate from union. They said a form of oath, last point of which was a curse, or what should be happen the person, who broke it. It was the chroniclers of Middle Ages or the foreign writers, who recorded their points for the first time. The tribe, who concluded the alliance, had preserved those points in the tradition. From the historical sources we can realize, that the system of sworn-brothers was a common custom among Inner Asian tribes. The first record can be read in Herodotus’s book, who recorded the life of Scythians. Besides that the entire Eurasian steppe has the same custom, and the most nations have preserved it up till now from Mongolia to Hungary, but these alliances are for strengthening the friendship, not for establishing state. The administrational system of the Huns was recorded mainly in the Chinese sources. The Empire had three parts (or wings). Among them the central position was the centre of the Great King, or shan-yu in the Hun period. The latter reading of the title used to be different. Pulleyblank thinks, it is “tarhan” or blacksmith, Uchiraltu thinks, it is the same as “Chingiz/ Chenger/Tengri” means “the collector of a people as great as ocean”. The Great King has authority over the two wings, and he appoints the leader of them. The leader of the left wing has to be the crown prince, who is usually was the son of the shan-yu, but sometimes his brother got the territory. Inside the Hun Empire the civil and the military administration were in one hand, which was a very effective method. The military power was organized “units of tens” and the highest rank was the general of ten thousand. The Chinese chronicles recorded, that 24 great statesmen (da chen) were the counselors of the shan-yu, who gave advices for him. We know some titles of the Huns, which bearers of a significant role in the territorial divisions. The name of territorial leader in full powers was “wang”, which had the meaning of king in the Chinese states. Many scholars thought, it was a Chinese title, but according to the Chinese dictionary of official titles it is an unknown expression, so it must have been derivated from the people of the steppes, or Huns. The title of wang had been preserved throughout Eurasia –the Persian and Turkic ban, the Mongolian wan or ong and Hungarian bán- prove that it was the title of the Inner Asian leaders. The wang/ban was responsible for the entire administration of a certain area. In chapter 110 Shi Ji, the author, Sima Qian wrote about the Hun titles: „ Their organisation had the following titles: wise king (wang) of the left and right wings, yuli king of left and right wings…” etc. Katalin Csornai, Hungarian Sinologue translated as yuli king. The title yuli (or ancient pronunciation: gyiuk-la) shows similarity with the Hungarian title gyula, who was a leader of Transylvania in the 10-11th century. It can be found in the Turkic languages as yula, yulay, or the Old Bulgarian Kingdom as dulo. The Hungarian chronicles also have a similar form, Dulo, which was a name of powerful king of Meotis-lake (present-day Azovi-sea) The choban was an ancient dignitary in the steppe region, too. In the past decade the scholars thought it was an ancient Turkic title, but according to some new point of views, it was appeared in the Hun period. In the old Chinese sources (7th century BC) we can find choban as the earliest title of the Eastern Huns. That name became popular in the later times, so the Hunnic Attila’s third son name preserved as Csaba among Szekely’s, which was a dignitary not a personnel name for him. His personal name could be Irnek or Hernac, as Priscos rhetor recorded. That dignitary can be found among Bulgars, Turkic, even among Mongols in the Middle Ages, which proved that was a heritage of a great Huunic Empire. In the Chinese chronicles we can find the title “gudouhou”, which was a significant officer in the Hun Empire. Uchiraltu thinks that it is the punctual reading “kudugu” and it was the chief-judge of the Huns as other –Chinese and Mongolian - sources prove it. He states, that the Mongolian word of kutuktu (saint in the Buddhist terminology) is the same as the Hun kudugu. But, in my opinion it has a western parallel. In the Hungarian historical chronicles there is an interesting name for the chief-judge of the European Huns “kadar”. The origin of the dignitary is unknown among Hungarian scientists. If we consider, as the Chinese scholars pointed out, that the kudugu has kind of form as kadagu / kada, we propose that the two titles have connection. The Public history of the Huns As I mentioned above, the Huns became very strong under the reign of Mao-tun or Baatar, who conquered the vast territory: eastward he overpowered the dong hu (Eastern Hu), westward he conquered the yue chi, who lived along the Silk Road, present-day Gansu province. The dong hu and the yue-chi had been belonged to Inner Asian steppe civilization, so –according to the Hun ideology – they weren’t occupied, but united as the “bow drawing” people. Later, Chinggis khan used similar expression for that: he also united the people who lived in rounded-tent. The Hun Empire was so strong that the Chinese Han-dynasty paid tribute to them. The Huns weren’t defeated for centuries. They only lost the authority over the Silk Road in 121 BC, which was a really heavy loss. The united Hun Empire became weak because of the crisis within. Hardly had the central power or authority of the shan-yu decreased, then the lesser kings or wangs wanted to strengthen own powers in countryside. It was the reason for the weakness of the Empire at the end of 2nd century BC, but their military power remained strong. At the same time, the first Hun tribes appeared in the forest belt of Southern Siberia and reached the Ural-mountain. So, the Huns didn’t appeared so suddenly in the European continent, as it was thought before. The archeological findings, ancient Greek maps, and the Armenian sources proved the new theory. They moved westward gradually, and they settled down near the Caspian see in the middle of the 2nd century BC. The reason for the migration was overpopulation, and wishes to control the international trade routes. We must note that this area had been inhabited by Scythians and Sarmatians, so they had the same material culture. There may have been similarities in the languages, but it is a controversial topic among linguists. The Chinese chronicles recorded, that some Hun tribes had moved gradually westward. They mentioned the state of Yan cai, where the population had been filled with Huns from East. The Hun Empire was divided into two parts in 55 BC, when two brothers - Huhanye and Chichi - fought for the title and the power of shan-yu. Huhanye became the vassal of the Han-dynasty, they served as frontier guards against own brothers or the northern alias Black Huns. Huhanye and his descendants had to pay tribute for the Han-dynasty. Those Huns got the name of the Southern or Red Huns, where the red color referred to the direction. Chichi, who had to flee from the Chinese court, settled down at the western part of the former Hun Empire, and he seized the territory of present-day Mongolia. That’s why he got the name of black or northern Huns. The direction was symbolized by colours, but the Eastern people used for 5 for that. North is black, East is Blue or Green, South is Red, West is White, and the centre is Yellow. They moved westward and became the ancestors of the European Huns. Thanks to the archeological findings, we start to think over some theories history of the later Huns. As I mentioned, the Huns, who had moved westward, settled down in Central Asia and Southern Siberia and a big group appeared around the Caspian Sea. When they overpopulated there, they moved toward Europe and Northern-India in about the 350’s. The Indian or the White Huns got the name Hephtalites after the name of the first king, Hephtal, and their Empire lasted until the 550’s. The Mongolian archeologists, namely Batsaihan proved, that the Northern Huns, who lived in the territory of present-day Mongolia, they didn’t even disappeared after a defeat of Xianbei in 93 AD, but their state remained in existence until the beginning of the 5th century, when the Juanjuan, (or Asian Avars) or Hvars occupied them. Batsaihan shows that the Hun culture survived as late as the 5th century. Chapter 95 of the Bei shu shows that the Huns had a state at that time. We must say something about the Southern Huns, who became the vassal of the Han dynasty. They lived in the valley of the Yellow-river and the western parts (the territory of the present day Gansu and Xinjiang). As the Chinese chronicles say, their military power remained strong, as before the Imperial period, and the Chinese Emperors and generals frequently used the Hun cavalry a very much time. The European scientists used to think that the Southern Huns quickly assimilated into the Chinese people, but now it has been proved to be untrue. According to the archeological findings and Chinese historical sources we can see, that the Southern Huns consisted of independent states until the first half of the 5th century, but they used Chinese names for their dynasties, that’s why scientists thought, that they had already assimilated. Under the name of Han, Liang and Da Xia powerful Hun Empires existed in the valley of the Yellow-river. One of the greatest relics of the Southern Huns is the remnants of the capital of the Da Xia dynasty, which name is Tongwancheng, or White city (the last one was the real Hun name). It was built during 413-419, by using a special building sacrifice – human bodies were buried into the wall – which custom can be observed in the folklore of the most nations of Eurasia – Mongolians, Tibetians, Turkic, Osets, Georgian and Hungarians. Even, the name of White cities spread over Eurasia, as Huns moved westward. Further details of the Huns According to the latest scientific results, the Inner Asian material and intellectual culture had a big impact on the European continent from the ancient times. Let us begin the list with the biggest steppe invents, which determinate the military method until the 20th century. The steppe people were the first, who used the horse for riding, as they sat on its backs. They created horse-furniture in order to govern the animal. The ancient Greeks named them as “Centaur”, because the horse and its rider were able to move together. The effective horse-furniture was invented the pastoral people, which was suitable for the battle. They were skilled horse breeders, and they were able to breed special kinds of horses, including one, which was able to run about ten thousand lis (or 500 kilometers) in one day. That name is “flying” horse, which is a mythical animal in the folklore texts in Eurasia. They used various flags during the battles, that way they were able to distinguish tribes from each other. In the battlefield it was very difficult to recognize their own groups, so the Huns used different colored horses for the purpose. Other kind of giving signs was the emblem, which became as crest in the Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It originated from the steppe. The mounted-nomadic people created a special and effective battle style that was one reason, they were able to rule vast territories in Eurasia. They had many kinds of special weapons, and they could use any of them in the battles. The most fearful one was the bow, which has been the best in the world until now. The fighters were able to draw a bow backward, while riding the horse. Additionally, they introduced the fashion of trousers and underwear. They used instant food (dried meat and milk powder) for the first time, and that way they made easier the provision of the army. They invented two important signs of authorities: the seal and the emblem (billog or paizi). Among Inner Asian tribes an object with similar function was widespread: the ancient name for that is belge, or sign. It had a very important role in the communication and diplomacy among tribes. As the nomads lived scattered, an effective system of communication was needed in order that the news could reach to the distant territories. The tribe leader had numerous envoys who went on a special mission. They used a circle shaped wooden or metal object, which was identified the envoy himself. The Huns had their own writing system that was the runic script. Besides that, they knew other writings, like Chinese, Brahmans, etc. The different kind of steppes peoples could practise their own religion freely; even the first law on free religion practise was appeared among them. So, it was the one of the great achievements. The Great kings even gave money for building various monasteries in their own territories. Under their protection the biggest religions – as Christianity, Buddhism and Islam- spread over Eurasia. The Huns don’t exist any more, but their descendants have preserved some elements of the great civilization, which has affected the greatest part of Eurasia in the field of material and intellectual culture. Borbala Obrusanszky, Ph.D Historian-orientalist Hungary