Friday history mystery…what happened to the Hun and what did they look like??? Hun as in Attila the Hun.
There are not very many descriptions of the Hun. The most famous was of Attila.
short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with gray; and he had a flat nose and tanned skin, showing evidence of his origin.
This was written by a Roman from an empire he almost destroyed and black mailed them into succeeding land to his people, now know as Hun-gary.
Another description was this:
Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (Res Gestae 31.2) had to say about the Hunnic males who were encountered by the Romans during the last quarter of the 4th century A.D.:
“From the moment of birth they make deep gashes in their children’s cheeks, so that when in due course hair appears its growth is checked by the wrinkled scars; as they grow older this gives them the unlovely appearance of beardless eunuchs. They have squat bodies, strong limbs, and thick necks, and are so prodigiously ugly and bent that they might be two-legged animals… Still, their shape, however disagreeable, is human.”
and
The barbarian nation of the Huns, which was in Thrace, became so great that more than a hundred cities were captured and Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it. … And there were so many murders and blood-lettings that the dead could not be numbered. Ay, for they took captive the churches and monasteries and slew the monks and maidens in great numbers.
— Callinicus, in his Life of Saint Hypatius
Many historians think the Hun were part of a federation of nomadic people who lived on the North Western border of ancient China, they were known to the Chinese as the Xiongnu, a war-like barbaric horsemen who lacked “virtue and morals” Meaning, they did not act Chinese. Seems China and Romans had some things in common, arrogance. hehe
Overtime, due to Chinese attacks and a factional enternal conflict, atleast some of the Xiongnu likely a Northern grouping) moved west all the way to Rome across the Asian and Eastern European Steppes. I guess they travelled through modern Ukraine southeastward, which would have put them between Rome and Greece, right in the middle of the Empire. By this time the Xiongnu had hired, allied with, and enslaved various tribes of people along the way from early proto-Slav (?) people to Persian-speaking nomads. The physical descriptions given by the Romans seem to imply they looked East Asian (very much like Mongolians) and I am fairly certain they were mostly men (as nomadic warriors tended to be, and mixed with women wherever they could buy, kidnap, enslave, make treaties, etc) for them.
Here is a recreation of a skull of a Hun woman found, it appears they were into Head Elongation like some ancient Egyptian Royals and the Inca.
Obviously modern Hungarians do not look like this. There is still some debate if mondern Hungarians are even related to the Hun or were the Magyars a neighboring people, historically it is believed that they are direct descendants though. Their language is also from a group that originated in Asia. Language does not prove genetic relationship, but most of the evidence seems to point in the same direction.
Atilla lived in the early to mid part of the 4th century; at the time Hungary was not empty, but was ceded to the Hun, and I’m guessing the Hun were not that many in number compared to the people they colonized. This is similar to how a very small force of Americans can overrun and restrain Afghanistan. Well armed men on horse back who are well organized can subdue a bunch of farmers pretty easily, as well as make them speak Hunnish, which became Hungarian.
Modern Hungarians look like this:
This is easy to figure out. A Hun warrior procreates with a local girl. His son is raised as a Hun but is half hun, then his son marries a local girl. After that, they probably look fairly similar to locals on avearge, but still retain much of their culture and language. After 200-300 years there will be no real difference between the “Hun” and their nearest neighbors, that is really notable. I looked up a MtDNA study on this issue, but this is only on the mother’s side, which is misleading because their were not many Hun women in Euorpe, but it showed only 7% of Hungarians still have East Asian maternal markers on their female side. I’m guessing for the father’s side (Y Chromosone) it will be about 10-15%. The 7% test was also quite small, only 27 people. What I would really like to see are autosomal tests.
There are other folks who speak a language loosely related to the Hun in Europe, the Fins, Estonians, and Saami. None of these languages are Indo-European and all come from parent languages that originated on the Asian Steppe. Out of all of those, the only people who look remotely Eaast Asian today are Saami, but they are few and scattered across Scandinavia.
Saami:
From Northern Britain through Europe to the Black Sea, from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast the Limes encircled the Roman Empire. Many places were heavily fortified and especially the wall of Hadrian and the part running through Germany presents interesting places to go and get a grip of how the mighty Romans dealt with their neighbors.
This summer Trier, Koblenz and Speyer are important places to start an incursion into this frontier-area.
In Trier there are the magnificent exhibitions mounted to celebrate the coronation of Constantine in 307 and his European importance. In Koblenz an exhibition focuses more on Life along Limes,that is on the development of the frontier, the building phases of the fortresses, and daily life among the traders, the army, its officers and public servants. Finally in Speyer there is an exhibition on Attila and the Huns. This year this inventive museum has recreated the wilfully deformed head of a Hunnish female from her elongated crania. The exhibition also shows the valuable diadems of high-ranking women, and the heavy Hunnish cauldrons. The visitor may also marvel at the armament of the equestrian warrior: his bows and swords as well as the weapons of their Germanic vassals.
Not tired yet? Why not drive on to Basel and join in the fun of the Roman Feast, a festival filled with gladiators, dancing troups and other Roman fare. It takes place on the 25th and 26th of August.
It is really worth this summer to fly into Bonn, jump over to the “Strasse der Römer” beginning in Zulpich, move down to Trier, drive along Mosel to Koblenz and then follow the Rhine to Speyer, ending up in Basel.
You couldn’t have picked worse pictures for the “typical Hungarians” of today. There are many Hungarians who have dark skin and black hair who are very Eastern looking. They obviously retain more of the original genes than do those who are more mixed. Also take into consideration there are many slavs and germans living in Hungary today who do not have any Magyar blood at all.
Personally, my family is never taken as being “white” and while I was in Central Asia (Xinjiang, precisely), I was never seen as a foreigner, but was always mistaken for a native instead.
Interesting.
Xiongnu has been well-documented in chinese history documents because the Great Wall was originally built to defend Hun (Xiongnu), They’ve been living to the northern border to Han Chinese for several hundreds of years. Then the Hun split around the 2nd/3rd century after losing a few large battles with Han people in Han Dynasty in China. The north part migrated to west then lost track from chinese history. But their descendants
are well documented. more than a few millions of Hun people merged into Northern Han Chinese (they were described as a big mixture consists of many different tribes, some of them carry obvious more Caucasian features, and some of them Mongoloid. )
Even today in some of the Northern Chinese provinces, you can still find “strange” looking Chinese, with some Caucasian features. Many Hun descendants can be reliably traced by their family names, some of them are known originated from Hun people. In recent years, there are quite a few archaeological discoveries on Hun remains, tombs, there are more evidence that Hun is a mixture of many nomadic tribes, but the languages and majority are more Altaic/Turkic. a portrait of Hun leader (Chan-yu) was evacuated and it portraits thick beard and a blue eye color.
Another recent DNA based genetic study found that the genetic distance between Northern chinese and altaic/central asian/turkic/tungkus is far smaller than the distance between northern and southern chinese.