Hunnic warrior

High status European HUNNIC WARRIOR from the horde of Attila, 5th century AD. He wears a lamellar helmet based on a find from Kalkhni (Dagestan, Russia), for which I’ve used a replica made by Seb Herzynia of Iflungen Replikate. Lamellar helmets with a pear-like shape and a small dome at the top were first worn in Han dynasty China, but by the 6th-7th centuries, different variants of this helmet were worn by cultures as distant as the Germanic-speaking Lombards in Italy and the Koreans. Such helmets entered Europe from the steppes with the Huns. This example has realistic Roman-style ears on the cheek guards. This warrior also carries a dagger based on a find from Lake Burabay (northern Kazakhstan). An almost identical dagger was also found in a Silla tomb in Gyerim-ro, Korea, and daggers of the same typology are also represented in Buddhist cave paintings of the Tarim Basin, in western China. The belt is based on a Hunnic tomb from Volnikovka, Russia. From the belt hangs a Hunnic “nagaika” whip from the Walters Art Museum. The sword is based on a Hunnic find from Abrau-Dyurso (Caucasus). He wears a Late Roman “Coptic” tunic, pants decorated with 5th century Chinese silk, and a skin coat roughly inspired by 5th century finds from Mongolia and Roman descriptions of the Huns wearing animal skins. The bow-case and quiver are combined in a “gorytos”, an archaism of Scythian origin that was still used during the Hunnic period. The mail shirt is based on a find from Samara, Russia.

THE HUNS were a multiethnic confederation of nomadic peoples from the Eurasian Steppe, the origin of which may have been Turkic or Yeniseian (a linguistic group distantly related with some Native American languages such as the Navajo of the USA-Mexico border), but eventually including also Iranic and Finno-Ugric speakers. In the 5th century, led by Attila, the Huns invaded the Roman Empire, triggering a mass migration of Germanic tribes. Only 20 years after Attila’s death, the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Around the same time, other subgroups of Huns invaded Central Asia and India, attacking the Sassanids of Persia, and contributing to the collapse of India’s Gupta Empire.