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Huns
Jan 20, 2009 22:41:33 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 20, 2009 22:41:33 GMT 3
A Turkic people who ruled a multi-ethniced steppe empire.
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Huns
Jan 21, 2009 5:24:41 GMT 3
Post by hjernespiser on Jan 21, 2009 5:24:41 GMT 3
A Turkic people who ruled a multi-ethniced steppe empire. I tend to agree, although I'm highly skeptical of the Huns being descendant of Xiongnu.
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Huns
Jan 21, 2009 14:44:29 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 21, 2009 14:44:29 GMT 3
Depends on how you define "Mongolian": Mongolic-speakers or anyone living in Mongolia, which included Turkic peoples As for people who claim that the Huns were Mongolic, I don't take them seriously. There are just too many evidences, as I have shown in other thread already, to proove that the Huns were indeed a Turkic people. Although there are no direct evidences, the name itself shows a hint. Plus, the Huns in Europe couldn't just suddenly appear from nowhere, they must have come from somewhere and from some people ;D
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Huns
Jan 21, 2009 21:05:20 GMT 3
Post by hjernespiser on Jan 21, 2009 21:05:20 GMT 3
Otto Maenchen-Helfen summed up the problems with the indirect evidence rather well in "Huns and Hsiung-nu". - Hun and Xiongnu hairstyles were different. - Killing the Aged, apparently practiced by Huns and other neighboring peoples. Not so by the Xiongnu. - Huns had no beards apparently due to ritual scarification (their legs were reportedly hairy though). Xiongnu had full beards according to the Chinese. - Huns practiced cranial deformation. No evidence of this amongst the Xiongnu. - Huns used ceremonial gilded bows. No gilded bows in Xiongnu territory. - Gold leaves with scale patterns (Possible influence from Sassanians). Not found amongst Xiongnu. - The infamous cauldrons. As OMH puts it... "The cauldron of Otoka was certainly not cast there, and the Huns never lived in the forests of North Russia. The Chinese bronzes (Huai vessels) that were dug up at Cambridge and Rome, the Chinese silks found in the Crimea and Palmyra, the jade porte-epees and the mirrors excavated in South Russia do not testify to the presence of Chinese in the British isles, Syria, or on the shores of the Black Sea.... To lump all bell-shaped cauldrons with square lugs together, call them 'asiatic', and equate 'asiatic' with 'Hsiung-nu' will not do. We are still far from knowing where and when the prototype originated, whether it spread from east to west or vice versa or from a centre, perhaps somewhere near the Altai, east and west. All we know is that the distribution of the so-called Hunnish bronze cauldrons is limited to a territory west of the Black Sea. They may have developed anywhere in South Russia or in the steppes north of the Caspian and Aral Sea. Their relationship with the Ordos bronzes is about the same as that of Delft vases with blue-and-white Ming porcelains. But that does not prove the conquests of the Netherlands by the Chinese." - From Chinese sources... Su-te is Sogdiana, not Alania. The passage in the Wei-shu probably refers to the Hephthalites conquering Sogdiana, not the Xiongnu conquering Alania. The Xiongnu in Kangchu was a very small force, of which the Chinese slaughtered and scattered. I have the article in PDF... probably should put it up somewhere for download. *Edit: www.zuul.org/sites/default/files/Maenchen-Helfen%20Huns%20and%20Hsiung-Nu.pdf
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Huns
Jan 22, 2009 4:29:09 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 22, 2009 4:29:09 GMT 3
I agree. Material culture can change. I wanted to sum up OMH. Some questions did get raised though. The Avars seem to have preserved their hairstyle. What was the length of time of their sojourn from the east to the west? Comparable with the timeline for a Xiongnu-Hun movement? It seems like the Xiongnu at Kang-chu would have been too small of a group to resist influence and cultural assimilation by surrounding peoples.
Also noticed elsewhere (I think in OMH World of the Huns) a note that there's no record of Iranic names amongst the Huns until after they conquered the Alans.
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Huns
Jan 22, 2009 4:31:05 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 22, 2009 4:31:05 GMT 3
Oh Hjernespiser, actually OMH mentioned ever reply I wrote above ;D The article's download completed right after I posted the message
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Huns
Jan 22, 2009 5:23:04 GMT 3
Post by Subu'atai on Jan 22, 2009 5:23:04 GMT 3
To be honest I tend to find the Hunnic despictions rather shocking, the demonification in which I should only quote 'eating babies' exists in all European-based politically-motivated educational resources, exists between Greek VS Turks as well. However, there are Turks alive at present so it is labeled 'discrimination'. However there are no Huns alive, so it is considered 'historical fact'
Everything has been done to demonise the Huns via the pen, and unfortunately the only written documents available that references the Huns are from their very blood enemies. I wonder if even half of what the Euros said about the Huns is actually true. Not to mention all the other pre-Christian European "barbarian" cultures that existed prior to Roman colonisation. Rome, it's legacy of 'barbarificating' everything that isnt their own is legendary and still continues.
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Huns
Jan 22, 2009 20:57:29 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 22, 2009 20:57:29 GMT 3
That is the hardest part of Steppe History, unfortunately
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Huns
Jan 22, 2009 22:53:50 GMT 3
Post by Atabeg on Jan 22, 2009 22:53:50 GMT 3
how many wooden tablets did survived of teh xiongnu wich weren't send to the chinese?
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Huns
Jan 23, 2009 3:39:15 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 23, 2009 3:39:15 GMT 3
None, to my knowledge.
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Huns
Jan 23, 2009 20:00:51 GMT 3
Post by hjernespiser on Jan 23, 2009 20:00:51 GMT 3
Forgot to mention earlier that the PDF has a page out of order... To be honest I tend to find the Hunnic despictions rather shocking, the demonification... I wonder if even half of what the Euros said about the Huns is actually true. Well yes, this is true. Humans always demonize their enemies on some level, which is why contemporary historians read such sources with a grain of salt. It would be equally wrong to completely ignore the writing though as it would be to believe it literally.
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Huns
Jan 23, 2009 20:08:50 GMT 3
Post by hjernespiser on Jan 23, 2009 20:08:50 GMT 3
I agree. Material culture can change. I wanted to sum up OMH. Some questions did get raised though. The Avars seem to have preserved their hairstyle. What was the length of time of their sojourn from the east to the west? Comparable with the timeline for a Xiongnu-Hun movement? It seems like the Xiongnu at Kang-chu would have been too small of a group to resist influence and cultural assimilation by surrounding peoples.
Also noticed elsewhere (I think in OMH World of the Huns) a note that there's no record of Iranic names amongst the Huns until after they conquered the Alans.
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Huns
Jan 23, 2009 22:36:13 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 23, 2009 22:36:13 GMT 3
That would be quite natural indeed.
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Huns
Jan 24, 2009 22:01:18 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 24, 2009 22:01:18 GMT 3
Thank you for the share
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Huns
Jan 27, 2009 3:22:33 GMT 3
Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 27, 2009 3:22:33 GMT 3
It is clear that regarding those events, 5th-6th century Roman-Germanic sources are much more reliable than Medieval Hungarian chronicles
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