The term was introduced by Robert Göbl[2] in the 1960s and is based on his study of coins. The term "Iranian Huns" coined by Göbl has been sometimes accepted in research, especially in German academia, and reflects how some of the namings and inscriptions of the Kidarites and Hephthalites used an Iranian language,[3] and the bulk of the population they ruled was Iranian.[4] Their origin is controversially discussed.[5] Göbl describes four groups: Kidarites, Alchons, Nezaks, and Hephthalites as the Iranian Huns based on numismatic evidence available at his time. But recent descriptions also put the Xionites as a fifth group. In recent research, it is debated whether the new arrivals came as one wave or several waves of different peoples.[6][5]
They are roughly equivalent to the Hunas[citation needed]. Related to the Iranian Huns are the Uar, Hunas and uncertain terms from various languages like "White Hun", "Red Hun" and others.
The Iranian Huns are not to be confused with the European Huns led by Attila. A few reports exist from Late antiquity, coming from China and India where they are referred to as Hunas. Much of the information comes from the study of coins, of which many have been found. These coins raise many problems of chronology and interpretation. Furthermore, coins of the Iranian Huns cannot always be assigned to a definite ruler.[citation needed]
In the fourth century various central Asian tribes began to attack the Persian Sasanian Empire. The sources sometimes call these people 'Huns', but their origin is unclear. It is probable that they were not related to the Huns who appeared on the south Russian steppe about 375 and attacked the Roman Empire. The two terms should be clearly separated. Like 'Scythian', ‘Hun’ in its various forms was used loosely by ancient historians to refer to various steppe tribes of which they knew little.[5] In modern research, it is often accepted that the term 'Hun' was often used, because of its fame, for various mixed groups and is not to be understood as the name of a concrete ethnic group.[citation needed]
Xionites
The Xionites were not included in Robert Göbl's classification because they left no coinage. More recent research has found a connection between the Xionites and Göbl's first wave of Iranian Huns.
Ca. 350[7] a group called the Xionites began to attack the Sassanid Empire. They conquered Bactria, but Shapur II eventually reconciled them. Later they allied with the Persians, participated in the Roman-Persian War and joined in the Siege of Amida (359) under their king Grumbates. Written reports come from Ammianus Marcellinus, among others. The Middle Persian term Xyon seems to be related to both 'Xionite' and 'Hun' but does not imply that all groups with this name were related or ethnically homogenous. Among the Iranian Huns, except possibly the Xionites, we can recognize definite Iranian elements, notably the Bactrian language as an administrative language and coin inscriptions.
Portrait of Kidarites king Kidara, circa 350–386. The coinage of the Kidarite Huns imitated Sasanian imperial coinage, with the exception that they displayed clean-shaven faces, instead of the beards of the Sasanians, a feature relating them to Altaic rather than Iranian lineage.
Göbl's first group were the Kidarites who near the end of the fourth century were involved in the aftermath of the fall of the Kushan Empire (after 225, see Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom). Recent research has the Kidarites as a clan of the Xionites, or somehow derived from them so that the two groups cannot be strictly distinguished.[11] Both groups appear as serious opponents of the Persians. Priscus said that the Sasanids fought 'Kidarite Huns'. This was probably at the time of Bahram V (420–438) and certainly the time of Yazdegerd II (438–457).[12] The Persians are known to have paid tribute to the Kidarites.
The name Kidarites comes from their first known ruler, Kidara (circa 350–385). They made coins in imitation of the Kushano-Sasanids who had previously ruled the area. Many coin-hoards have been found in the Kabul area which allows us to date the start of their rule to about 380. Kidarite coins found in Gandhara suggest that their rule sometimes extended into northern India. Their coins are inscribed in Bactrian, Sogdian and Middle Persian and in the Brahmi script.
Their power fell in the later fifth century. Their capital, Balkh, fell in 467 probably after a great victory of Peroz I over their king Kunkhas. Their rule in Gandhara lasted until at least 477, for in that year they sent an embassy to the Northern Wei dynasty. They seem to have held out in Kashmir a little longer, and then all traces disappear. By this time the Hephthalites had established themselves in Bactria and the Alkhons had driven the Kidarites out of the land south of the Hindu Kush.
Portrait of king Khingila, founder of the Alchon Huns, c. 430 - 490 CE.
The second wave was the Alkhons who established themselves in the Kabul area around 400. Their history must be reconstructed almost exclusively from coin-hoards. Their coins are based on Sassanid models, probably because they took over the Persian mint at Kabul. The Bactrian word "Alxanno" is stamped on their coins, from which we derive the name "Alkhon". It is not clear whether this word means a tribe, or a ruler, or is a royal title.[13]
Under their king Khingila (died about 490) they attacked Gandhara and drove out the Kidarites. Their following attacks on Indian princes seem to have been unsuccessful. In the early sixth century they expanded from Gandhara to northwest India and practically destroyed the rule of the Guptas, whose coins they imitated. This claim of an Alkhon invasion is based entirely on coin-finds since Indian sources call all of the northern invaders 'Hunas', including perhaps the Hephthalites.[14] Under Toramana and his son Mihirakula (515-540/50?) they were especially aggressive. Mihirakula is portrayed negatively and is accused of persecuting Buddhists. Around the middle of the sixth century their power in north India broke down. Mihirakula suffered a serious defeat in 528 and thereafter his power was limited. His capital was Sakala in Punjab which was once an important Indo-Greek center. After his death (550?) they stopped pressing their attacks. Despite its short duration the Huna invasion was politically and culturally devastating for India. Later some of the Alkhons seem to have returned to Bactria.
Göbl's third wave were the Nezak Huns who settled around Kabul. Early scholars called them 'Napki'. The exact chronology is unclear. The first written accounts come from the early seventh century. Some place their foundation in the late sixth century after the fall of the Hephthalites. The coins imply a foundation in the late fifth century.[15] If we accept the early dating they were under pressure from the Hephthalites, but by the later dating they profited from the Hephthalite collapse.[16]
Their coins are strongly based on Sassanid models but are clearly recognizable by their distinctive bulls-head crowns which allow the coins to be divided into types. It seems that returning Alkhon groups met the Nizaks and produced an Alkhon-Nizak mixed language.
It is certain that they expanded to Gandhara and minted coins there. Chinese sources from the early seventh century prove that their capital was Kapisa. Their remnants south of the Hindu Kush seem to have been destroyed by the Arab conquest in the late seventh century.
The fourth and most important wave were the Hephthalites who arrived in the mid fifth century. As with the other groups an exact chronology is difficult to establish. From later Perso-Arabic sources such as Al-Tabari it appears that they were opponents of the Persians already in the first half of the fifth century, although the sources use the vague term “Turk”. The few reports of Greco-Roman authors, who often had little knowledge of events so far east, made little distinction between the different groups and it seems more probable that they referred to other Iranian Huns who arrived before the Hephthalites proper. They were called "White Huns" by Procopius who gives some information. Their coins are based on current Persian models.
To the end of the fifth century they had spread from eastern Tocharistan (Bactria) and brought several neighboring areas under control. They expanded not to India but to Transoxana. The Hunas reported from Indian sources were probably Alkhons (see above). By the beginning of the sixth century they controlled a significant area in Bactria and Sogdia.
The Hephthalites had many conflicts with the Persians. In 484 Peroz I fell in battle against the Hephthalites, who had defeated him before. In 498/99 they restored Kavadh I to the throne. The Persians seem to have paid tribute, at least some of the time. Among the Iranian Huns the Hephthalites were the most serious threat to the Persians. Syrian and Armenian sources report repeated Sassanid attempts to secure their northeast border which led to disaster for Peroz I who had previously defeated the Kidarites. According to Procopius they had an effective ruling system with a king at the top and, at least after the conquest of Bactria and Sogdia, were no longer nomads. They used Bactrian language as an administrative language and used the urban centers of their realm, notably Gorgo (location?) and Balkh. Around 560 their realm was destroyed by an alliance of Persians and Gokturks. Hephthalite remnants lasted until the Arab conquest in the late seventh and early eighth centuries.
References and notes
Robert Göbl: Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen in Baktrien und Indien. 4 Bände. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1967.
↑ Rezakhani, Khodadad (2017). "The Iranian Huns and the Kidarites". Written at Edinburgh, Scotland. ReOrienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity. Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia. University of Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, DeGruyter. p.88. ISBN978-1-4744-0030-5. JSTOR10.3366/j.ctt1g04zr8. From Chinese sources, it appears that different waves of invaders came via the same route, crossing the Syr Darya into Transoxiana, then invading Bactria/Tokharistan, and eventually crossing the Hindu Kush into the Kabul Valley and ultimately Gandhara.
↑ Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft: Alter Orient-Griechische Geschichte-Römische Geschichte. Band III,7: The History of Ancient Iran, Richard Nelson Frye, C.H.Beck, 1984 p.346
↑ Turko-Persia in Historical Perspective, Robert L. Canfield, Cambridge University Press, 2002 p.49
↑ Cf. e.g. Boris A. Litvinsky (ed): The crossroads of civilizations. A.D. 250 to 750 (= History of Civilizations of Central Asia Bd. 3). Paris 1996, p. 120.
↑ The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, Michael Maas, Cambridge University Press, 2014 p.284sq
↑ Encyclopaedia Iranica, article Kidarites: "On Gandhāran coins bearing their name the ruler is always clean-shaven, a fashion more typical of Altaic people than of Iranians" in "KIDARITES – Encyclopaedia Iranica". www.iranicaonline.org.
↑ Daniel T. Potts: Nomadism in Iran. From Antiquity to the Modern Era. 2014, p. 129.
↑ Daniel T. Potts: Nomadism in Iran. From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Oxford 2014, pp136 and 138. See also Nikolaus Schindel: The Sasanian Eastern Wars in the 5th Century. The Numismatic Evidence. In: A. Panaino, A. Piras (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Societas Iranologica Europaea. Volume I. Mailand 2006, pp 675–689, here pp 678–680. Linked Wikipedia articles also call them 'Hephthalites' or 'Huns'
↑ Among others Boris A. Litvinsky: The Hephthalite Empire. In: Boris A. Litvinsky (Hrsg.): The crossroads of civilizations. A.D. 250 to 750. =UNESCO, volume iii, Paris 1996, p. 141–143. Compare to A. D. Bivar: Hephthalites. In: Encyclopædia Iranica, who emphasizes the difficulty of a clear distinction.
↑ See Klaus Vondrovec: Coinage of the Nezak. In: M. Alram, D. Klimburg-Salter, M. Inaba, M. Pfisterer (publisher): Coins, Art and Chronology II. The First Millennium C.E. in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands. Wien 2010, p 169–190, here pp 169 and 173f.
The ancient history of Afghanistan, also referred to as the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan, dates back to the prehistoric era and the Helmand civilization around 3300–2350 BCE. Archaeological exploration began in Afghanistan in earnest after World War II and proceeded until the late 1970s during the Soviet–Afghan War. Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world. Urbanized culture has existed in the land from between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
Peroz I was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 459 to 484. A son of Yazdegerd II, he disputed the rule of his elder brother and incumbent king Hormizd III, eventually seizing the throne after a two-year struggle. His reign was marked by war and famine. Early in his reign, he successfully quelled a rebellion in Caucasian Albania in the west, and put an end to the Kidarites in the east, briefly expanding Sasanian rule into Tokharistan, where he issued gold coins with his likeness at Balkh. Simultaneously, Iran was suffering from a seven-year famine. He soon clashed with the former subjects of the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, who possibly had previously helped him to gain his throne. He was defeated and captured twice by the Hephthalites and lost his recently acquired possessions.
The Hephthalites, sometimes called the White Huns, were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE, part of the larger group of Eastern Iranian Huns. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of Tokharistan, under the suzerainty of the Western Turks and of the Sasanian Empire, before the Tokhara Yabghus took over in 625.
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Xionites, Chionites, or Chionitae were a nomadic people in the Central Asian regions of Transoxiana and Bactria.
The Kidarites, or Kidara Huns, were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna, and in Europe as the Chionites, and may even be considered as identical to the Chionites. The 5th century Byzantine historian Priscus called them Kidarite Huns, or "Huns who are Kidarites". The Huna/Xionite tribes are often linked, albeit controversially, to the Huns who invaded Eastern Europe during a similar period. They are entirely different from the Hephthalites, who replaced them about a century later.
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The Tokhara Yabghus or Yabghus of Tokharistan were a dynasty of Western Turk–Hephtalite sub-kings with the title "Yabghus", who ruled from 625 CE in the area of Tokharistan north and south of the Oxus River, with some smaller remnants surviving in the area of Badakhshan until 758 CE. Their legacy extended to the southeast where it came into contact with the Turk Shahis and the Zunbils until the 9th century CE.
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The Sasanian-Kidarite Wars were a series of military confrontations between the Sassanid Empire and the Kidarites.
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