EurasianStudies_0110..

January-March 2010 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume II., Issue 1.
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others the state structure of the Huns, and they clarified many issues. At present, most scientists
recognise that nomadic states did exist, established by the Huns for the first time; they state moreover
that later steppe empires, like Chingis Khan’s Mongolia was based on the Hun state tradition. Scholars
also agree that the tribe structure could be the elementary political organisation of the Inner-Asian “bow
stretching” or steppe peoples. Besides the Russians, many Americans also expressed the opinion that the
steppe-empire came into existence as the result of inner development, and they did not borrow the
model from sedentary people. 3 Previously, Burham thought that nomads had a more efficient
organisation than sedentary people, because horsemen had to manage huge territories. 4 Some Russians,
as Khazanov, reported that the Scythians were a state organizing people; 5 he proved it with relevant
antique sources, and archaeological findings; among the later evidences can be found dignitary insignias,
diadems, etc. which refers to the fact that they lived in a developed society, and they had kings and
queens as well. Such Scythian coins, on which Greek inscriptions recorded the word basileus, or name of
the king, were excavated not only in Inner-Asia, but in Afghanistan and Indian territories, too. The above
mentioned objects prove that they had kingdoms, hence formal state structure. 6
Regarding the questions of Hunnic state we need to turn our attention to a significant problem, which
has divided the scholars for years. Some of them stated that the Huns, who appeared in Chinese sources
as xiongnu were different from the Indian Hunas or European Huns. Thanks to the huge amounts of
archaeological findings and historical evidences, nowadays most scholars recognize that the Huns
created a united empire throughout Eurasia and were in contact with each other through diplomacy and
trade until the middle of the 6 th century AD, when Turks began to dominate Central-Asia. 7
Chinese scholars also brought new scientific results to light and rewrote entirely the history of the
Huns; they also clarified the appearances of the names of the Huns in their own sources. They state, that
the Huns have other names in the early Chinese chronicles. Regarding the periodisation of the names,
Chinese scholars show that during the Shang-dynasty Huns were called as Xunyun (or Hunor), 8 during
the Zhou-era as Xianyun. But all these names go back to the following reconstructed form: *hun* or
*hung*; 9 that is the same form as later Qin xiong-nu or Indian huna. The worldwide used expression,
xiong-nu, began to be used only from 318 BC, when the independent Chinese states began to unite, and
many of them used the same name or expressions for the northern horsemen. Besides xiongnu, we can
find many other ancient names for the Huns, in the Qin and Han sources, as hu, bei di, xunyun, lu, etc.
3 Barfield, 1981. 52.
4 Burnham, 1979. 349-50.
5 Khazanov, 1984.
6 Beside the coins of the Crimean-penisula we can find the Greek-originated title basileus in Central-Asia.
7 Deschodt, 2006. Priscos recorded the supremancy of the European Huns, spread over the coasts of the Black Sea and Caspian
Sea. (Priscos’s fragments, 2000. 117)
8 DeGroot’s reconstruction, DeGroot, 2006.
9 Their summaries are: Uchiraltu, 2008.7-8, Wu. 2005. 3-4.
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