Everything about The Xiongnu totally explained
The
Xiongnu () were a
nomadic people from
Central Asia. "Xiongnu" was the most ancient name that was given to the
Turkic tribes of
Central Asia by the
Chinese .
They appear in Chinese sources from the
3rd century BC as controlling an empire (the "Asian Hun Empire" under
Modu Shanyu) stretching beyond the borders of modern day
Mongolia. They were active in the areas of southern
Siberia, western
Manchuria and the modern
Chinese provinces of
Inner Mongolia,
Gansu, and
Xinjiang. These nomadic people were considered so dangerous that the
Qin Dynasty ordered the construction of the
Great Wall to protect China from
Xiongnu attacks.
The bulk of information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources. What little is known of their titles and names comes from transliterations of Chinese character phoneticizations of their language. Only about 20 Xiongnu words belonging to the
Altaic languages are known, and only a single Xiongnu sentence survives from the Chinese documents. Relations between early Chinese dynasties and the Xiongnu were complicated and included
military conflict, exchanges of
tribute and trade, and marriage treaties.
Origins and languages
The language of the Xiongnu reflects without any scholarly consensus, based on the analysis between early
19th century to
20th century different opinions were proposed; proponents of the
Turkic languages included
Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat,
Julius Klaproth, Shiratori Kurakichi,
Gustaf John Ramstedt, Annemarie von Gabain, and
Omeljan Pritsak. Others, like
Paul Pelliot, insisted on a
Mongolic origin. Albert Terrien de Lacouperie considered them to be multi-component groups.
Lajos Ligeti was the first to suggest that the Xiongnu spoke a
Yeniseian language. In the early 1960s Edwin Pulleyblank was the first to expand upon this idea with credible evidence. In 2000,
Alexander Vovin reanalyzed Pulleyblank's argument and found further support for it by utilizing the most recent reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology by Starostin and Baxter and a single Chinese transcription of a sentence in the language of the
Jie (a member tribe of the Xiongnu confederacy). Previous Turkic interpretations of the aforementioned sentence don't match the Chinese translation as precisely as using Yeniseian grammar.
The original geographic location of Xiongnu is generally placed at the
Ordos. Recent genetics research dated 2003 confirms the studies indicating that the
Turkic peoples, originated from the same area and therefore are possibly related.
The rock art of the
Yinshan and
Helanshan is dated from the
9th millennium BC to
19th century. It consists mainly of engraved signs (petroglyphs) and only minimally of painted images. Ma Liqing compared the petroglyphs (which he presumed to be the sole extant example of possible Xiongnu writings), and the
Orkhon script (the earliest known
Turkic alphabet) recently, and argued a new connection between both of them.
Excavations conducted between 1924-1925, in
Noin-Ula kurgans located in
Selenga River in the northern
Mongolian hills north of
Ulan Bator, produced objects with over twenty carved characters, which were either identical or very similar to that of to the runic letters of the
Turkic Orkhon script discovered in the
Orkhon Valley.
Archaeology
In the 1920s,
Pyotr Kozlov's excavations of the royal tombs dated to about 1st century CE at
Noin-Ula in northern
Mongolia provided a glimpse into the lost world of the Xiongnu. Other archaeological sites have been unearthed in
Inner Mongolia and elsewhere; they represent the Neolithic and historical periods of the Xiongnu's history. Those included the
Ordos culture, many of them had been identified as the Xiongnu cultures. The region was occupied predominantly by peoples showing Mongoloid features, known from their skeletal remains and artifacts. Portraits found in the Noin-Ula excavations demonstrate other cultural evidences and influences, showing that Chinese and Xiongnu art have influenced each other mutually. Some of these embroidered portraits in the Noin-Ula
kurgans also depict the Xiongnu with long braided hair with wide ribbons, which are seen to be identical with the
Turkic Ashina clan hair-style.
Early history
According to
Sima Qian, the Xiongnu were descendants of Chunwei (淳維), possibly a son of
Jie, the final ruler of the
Xia Dynasty. However, while there's no direct evidence contradicting this account, there's no direct evidence supporting it either.
The Xiongnu was initially a collection of small and insignificant tribes residing in the barren area of Mongolian highlands. During the
Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the campaigns by Zhou's
vassal states to purge other hostile "barbarians" allowed Xiongnu the opportunity to strengthen and fill up the niche. These newly arisen
nomads became a great headache for the Chinese, as their horseback lifestyle proved very efficient for rapid invasion and raiding villages and townships. During the
Warring States period, three out of the seven warring states shared borders with Xiongnu, and a series of interconnected defensive fortresses were constructed, which joined later into the
Great Wall.
During the
Qin Dynasty, the Chinese army, under the command of General
Meng Tian, drove the Xiongnu tribes away and recaptured the
Henan region. The presence of the powerful
Donghu in the east and
Yuezhi in the west also served as restraints for the Xiongnu, forcing them to migrate further north for the next decade. With the collapse of the Qin Dynasty and the
subsequent civil war, the Xiongnu, under
Shanyu Toumen, was able to migrate south to border with China again.
Confederation under Modu
In
209 BC, just three years before the founding of the
Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu were brought together in a powerful
confederacy under a new
shanyu named
Modu Shanyu (known as Modu to Chinese and Mete in Turkish). The Xiongnu's political unity transformed them into a much more formidable foe by enabling them to concentrate larger forces and exercise better strategic coordination. The cause of the confederation, however, remains unclear. It has been suggested that the unification of China prompted the nomads to rally around a political centre in order to strengthen their position. Another theory is that the reorganisation was their response to the political crisis that overtook them
215 BC, when
Qin armies evicted them from pastures on the
Yellow River.
After forging internal unity, Modun expanded the empire on all sides. To the north he conquered a number of nomadic peoples, including the
Dingling of southern Siberia. He crushed the power of the
Donghu of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria, as well as the
Yuezhi in the
Gansu corridor. He was able, moreover, to reoccupy all the lands taken by the Qin general
Meng Tian. Before the death of Modun in
174 BC, the Xiongnu had driven the Yuezhi from the
Gansu corridor completely, killed the Yuezhi king in the process and drank from his skull as a cup, and asserted their presence in the
Western Regions in modern Xinjiang.
Nature of the Xiongnu state
Under Modun, a dualistic system of political organisation was formed. The left and right branches of the Xiongnu were divided on a regional basis. The
shanyu or
shan-yü — supreme ruler equivalent to the Chinese "
Son of Heaven" — exercised direct authority over the central territory. The
Longcheng (蘢城), near
Koshu-Tsaidam in Mongolia, was established as the annual meeting place and
de facto capital.
Xiongnu Hierarchy
Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu) were led by a chief called
shan-yü, whose full title transcribed into
Chinese is
Ch'eng-li Ku-t'u Shan-yü, words which the Chinese translate as "Majesty Son of Heaven". In these words may be detected
Turko-Mongol roots:
ch'eng-li in particular is the transcription of the
Turkic and
Mongol word
Tängri, Heaven or God.
Under the
shan-yü served "two great dignitaries, the kings
t'u-ch'i": that's to say, the wise kings of the right and left, the Chinese transcription
t'u-ch'i being related to the
Turkish word
doghri, straight, faithful. Insofar as one can speak of fixed dwellings for essentially nomadic people, the
shan-yü resided on the upper
Orkhon, in the mountainous region where later
Karakorum, the capital of the Jengiz-Khanite Mongols, was to be established. The worthy king of the left -in principle, the heir presumptive- lived in the east, probably on the high
Kerulen. The worthy king of the right lived in the west, perhaps near present day
Uliassutai in the
Khangai Mountains. Next, moving down the scale of the
Hunnic hierarchy, came the
ku-li "kings" of left and right, the army commanders of left and right, the great governors, the
tung-hu, the
ku-tu-all of left and right; then the chiefs of a thousand men, of a hundred, and of ten men. This nation of nomads, a people on the march, was organized like an army. The general orientation was southward, as was customary among Turko-Mongol peoples; the same phenomenon is to be seen among the descendants of the
Hsiung-nu, the
Turks of the
sixth century A.D., as well as in the case of the
Mongols of
Jenghiz Khan.
The marriage treaty system
In the winter of
200 BC, following a siege of
Taiyuan,
Emperor Gao personally led a military campaign against Modun. At the
battle of Baideng, he was ambushed reputedly by 300,000 elite Xiongnu cavalry. The emperor was cut off from supplies and reinforcements for seven days, only narrowly escaping capture.
After the defeat at Pingcheng, the Han emperor abandoned a military solution to the Xiongnu threat. Instead, in
198 BC, the courtier Liu Jing (劉敬) was despatched for negotiations. The peace settlement eventually reached between the parties included a Han princess given in marriage to the
shanyu (called
heqin 和親 or "harmonious kinship"); periodic gifts of
silk,
liquor and
rice to the Xiongnu; equal status between the states; and the
Great Wall as mutual border.
This first treaty set the pattern for relations between the Han and the Xiongnu for some sixty years. Up to
135 BC, the treaty was renewed no less than nine times, with an increase of "gifts" with each subsequent agreement. In
192 BC, Modun even asked for the hand of the widowed Empress Lü. His son and successor, the energetic Jiyu (稽粥), known as the Laoshang Shanyu (老上單于), continued his father's expansionist policies. Laoshang succeeded in negotiating with
Emperor Wen, terms for the maintenance of a large-scale government-sponsored market system.
While much was gained by the Xiongnu, from the Chinese perspective marriage treaties were costly and ineffective. Laoshang showed that he didn't take the peace treaty seriously. On one occasion his scouts penetrated to a point near
Chang'an. In
166 BC he personally led 140,000 cavalry to invade Anding, reaching as far as the imperial retreat at Yong. In
158 BC, his successor sent 30,000 cavalry to attack the Shang commandery and another 30,000 to
Yunzhong.
War with Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty made preparations for war when the Han Emperor Wu dispatched the explorer
Zhang Qian to explore the mysterious kingdoms to the west and to form an alliance with the Yuezhi people in order to combat the Xiongnu. After Zhang Qian was successful in forming that alliance, the Chinese were prepared to mount a large scale attack using the
Northern Silk Road to move men and materiel.
Han China was making preparations for a military confrontation from the reign of
Emperor Wen. The break came in
133 BC, following an abortive trap to ambush the
shanyu at Mayi. By that point the empire was consolidated politically, militarily, and financially, and was led by an adventurous pro-war faction at court. In that year,
Emperor Wu reversed the decision he'd made the year before to renew the peace treaty.
Full scale war broke out in autumn
129 BC, when 40,000 Chinese
cavalry made a surprise attack on the Xiongnu at the border markets. In
127 BC, the Han general
Wei Qing retook the
Ordos. In
121 BC, the Xiongnu suffered another setback when
Huo Qubing led a force of light cavalry westward out of Longxi and within six days fought his way through five Xiongnu kingdoms. The Xiongnu Hunye king was forced to surrender with 40,000 men. In
119 BC both Huo and Wei, each leading 50,000 cavalrymen and 100,000 footsoldiers, and advancing along different routes, forced the
shanyu and his court to flee north of the
Gobi Desert.
Major logistical difficulties limited the duration and long-term continuation of these campaigns. According the analysis of Yan You (嚴尤), the difficulties were twofold. Firstly there was the problem of supplying food across long distances. Secondly, the weather in the northern Xiongnu lands was difficult for Han soldiers, who could never carry enough fuel. According to official reports, Xiongnu's side lost 80,000 to 90,000 men. And out of the 140,000 horses the Han forces had brought into the desert, fewer than 30,000 returned to
China.
As a result of these battles, the Chinese controlled the strategic region from the
Ordos and Gansu corridor to
Lop Nor. They succeeded in separating the Xiongnu from the
Qiang peoples to the south, and also gained direct access to the
Western Regions.
Ban Chao, Protector General (都護;
Duhu) of the Han Dynasty embarked with an army of 70,000 men in a campaign against the Xiongnu insurgents who were harassing the trade route we now know as the
Silk Road. His successful military campaign saw the subjugation of one Xiongnu tribe after another, and those fleeing Xiongnu insurgents were pursued by Ban Chao's army of entirely mounted-infantry and light cavalry over an extremely vast distance westward into the territory of the
Parthians and beyond the
Caspian Sea, reaching the region of what is present-day
Ukraine. Upon return, he established a base on the shores of the Caspian Sea, after which he reportedly also sent an envoy named
Gan Ying to
Daqin (
Rome). Ban Chao was created the Marquess of Dingyuan (定遠侯, for example, "the Marquess who stabilized faraway places") for his services to the Han Empire and returned to the capital
Loyang at the age of 70 years old and died there in the year 102. Following his death, the power of the Xiongnu in the Western Regions increased again, and the emperors of subsequent dynasties were never again able to reach so far to the west.
Leadership struggle among the Xiongnu
As the Xiongnu empire expanded, it became clear that the original leadership structures lacked flexibility and couldn't maintain effective cohesion. The traditional succession of the eldest son became increasingly ineffective in meeting wartime emergencies in the
1st century BC. To combat the problems of succession, the
Huhanye Shanyu (
58 BC-
31 BC) later laid down the rule that his heir apparent must pass the throne on to a younger brother. This pattern of fraternal succession did indeed become the norm.
The growth of
regionalism became clear around this period, when local kings refused to attend the annual meetings at the
shanyu's court. During this period,
shanyu were forced to develop power bases in their own regions to secure the throne.
In the period
114 BC to
60 BC, the Xiongnu produced altogether seven
shanyu. Two of them, Chanshilu and Huyanti, assumed the office while still children. In 60 BC, Tuqitang, the "
Worthy Prince of the Right", became Wuyanjuti Shanyu. No sooner had he come to the throne, than he began to purge from power those whose base lay in the left group. Thus antagonised, in
58 BC the nobility of the left put forward Huhanye as their own
shanyu. The year
57 BC saw a struggle for power among five regional groupings, each with its own shanyu. In
54 BC Huhanye abandoned his capital in the north after being defeated by his brother, the
Zhizhi Shanyu.
Tributary relations with the Han
In
53 BC Huhanye (呼韓邪) decided to enter into tributary relations with
Han China. The original terms insisted on by the Han court were that, first, the
shanyu or his representatives should come to the capital to pay homage; secondly, the
shanyu should send a hostage prince; and thirdly, the
shanyu should present tribute to the Han emperor. The political status of the Xiongnu in the Chinese world order was reduced from that of a "brotherly state" to that of an "outer vassal" (外臣). During this period, however, the Xiongnu maintained political sovereignty and full territorial integrity. The
Great Wall of China continued to serve as the line of demarcation between Han and Xiongnu.
Huhanye sent his son, the "wise king of the right" Shuloujutang, to the Han court as hostage. In
51 BC he personally visited Chang'an to pay homage to the emperor on the
Chinese New Year. On the financial side, Huhanye was amply rewarded in large quantities of gold, cash, clothes, silk, horses and grain for his participation. Huhanye made two more homage trips, in
49 BC and
33 BC; with each one the imperial gifts were increased. On the last trip, Huhanye took the opportunity to ask to be allowed to become an imperial son-in-law. As a sign of the decline in the political status of the Xiongnu,
Emperor Yuan refused, giving him instead five ladies-in-waiting. One of them was
Wang Zhaojun, famed in Chinese folklore as one of the
Four Beauties.
When Zhizhi learned of his brother's submission, he also sent a son to the Han court as hostage in
53 BC. Then twice, in
51 BC and
50 BC, he sent envoys to the Han court with tribute. But having failed to pay homage personally, he was never admitted to the tributary system. In
36 BC, a junior officer named
Chen Tang, with the help of Gan Yanshou, protector-general of the Western Regions, assembled an expeditionary force that defeated
Zhizhi and sent his head as a trophy to Chang'an.
Tributary relations were discontinued during the reign of Huduershi (AD
18-
48), corresponding to the political upheavals of the
Xin Dynasty in China. The Xiongnu took the opportunity to regain control of the western regions, as well as neighbouring peoples such as the
Wuhuan. In AD
24, Hudershi even talked about reversing the tributary system.
Late history
Northern Xiongnu
The Xiongnu's new power was met with a policy of appeasement by
Emperor Guangwu. At the height of his power, Huduershi even compared himself to his illustrious ancestor, Modu. Due to growing regionalism among the Xiongnu, however, Huduershi was never able to establish unquestioned authority. When he designated his son as heir apparent (in contravention of the principle of fraternal succession established by Huhanye), Bi, the Rizhu king of the right, refused to attend the annual meeting at the
shanyu's court.
As the eldest son of the preceding
shanyu, Bi had a legitimate claim to the succession. In
48, two years after Huduershi's son Punu ascended the throne, eight Xiongnu tribes in Bi's powerbase in the south, with a military force totalling 40,000 to 50,000 men, acclaimed Bi as their own
shanyu. Throughout the Eastern Han period, these two groups were called the southern Xiongnu and the northern Xiongnu, respectively.
Hard pressed by the northern Xiongnu and plagued by natural calamities, Bi brought the southern Xiongnu into tributary relations with Han China in
50. The tributary system was considerably tightened to keep the southern Xiongnu under Han supervision. The
shanyu was ordered to establish his court in the Meiji district of Xihe commandery. The southern Xiongnu were resettled in eight frontier commanderies. At the same time, large numbers of Chinese were forced to migrate to these commanderies, where mixed settlements began to appear. The northern Xiongnu were dispersed by the Xianbei in
85 and again in
89 by the Chinese during the
Battle of Ikh Bayan, of which the last
Northern Shanyu was defeated and fled over to the north west with his subjects.
Southern Xiongnu
Economically, the southern Xiongnu relied almost totally on Han assistance. Tensions were evident between the settled Chinese and practitioners of the nomadic way of life. Thus, in
94 Anguo Shanyu joined forces with newly subjugated Xiongnu from the north and started a large scale rebellion against the Han.
Towards the end of the Eastern Han, the southern Xiongnu were drawn into the rebellions then plaguing the Han court. In 188, the
shanyu was murdered by some of his own subjects for agreeing to send troops to help the Han suppress a rebellion in
Hebei - many of the Xiongnu feared that it would set a precedent for unending military service to the Han court. The murdered
shanyu's son
Yufuluo, entitled Chizhisizhu (特至尸逐侯), succeeded him, but was then overthrown by the same rebellious faction in 189. He travelled to
Luoyang (the Han capital) to seek aid from the Han court, but at this time the Han court was in disorder from the clash between Grand General
He Jin and the eunuchs, and the intervention of the warlord
Dong Zhuo. The
shanyu had no choice but to settle down with his followers in
Pingyang, a city in
Shanxi. In 195, he died and was succeeded by his brother
Hucuquan.
In 216, the warlord-statesman
Cao Cao detained Hucuquan in the city of
Ye, and divided his followers in Shanxi into five divisions: left, right, south, north, and centre. This was aimed at preventing the exiled Xiongnu in Shanxi from engaging in rebellion, and also allowed Cao Cao to use the Xiongnu as auxiliaries in his cavalry. Eventually, the Xiongnu aristocracy in Shanxi changed their surname from
Luanti to Liu for prestige reasons, claiming that they were related to the Han imperial clan through the old intermarriage policy.
After the Han Dynasty
After Hucuquan, the Xiongnu were partitioned into five local tribes. The complicated ethnic situation of the mixed frontier settlements instituted during the Eastern Han had grave consequences, not fully apprehended by the Chinese government until the end of the
3rd century. By
260,
Liu Qubei had organized the Tiefu confederacy in the north east, and by 290,
Liu Yuan was leading a splinter group in the south west. At that time, non-Chinese unrest reached alarming proportions along the whole of the
Western Jin frontier.
Liu Yuan's Northern Han (304-318)
In
304 the sinicised Liu Yuan, a grandson of Yufuluo Chizhisizhu stirred up descendants of the southern Xiongnu in rebellion in
Shanxi, taking advantage of the
War of the Eight Princes then raging around the Western Jin capital
Luoyang. Under Liu Yuan's leadership, they were joined by a large number of frontier Chinese and became known as Bei Han. Liu Yuan used 'Han' as the name of his state, hoping to tap into the lingering nostalgia for the glory of the Han dynasty, and established his capital in
Pingyang. The Xiongnu use of large numbers of
heavy cavalry with iron armour for both rider and horse gave them a decisive advantage over
Jin armies already weakened and demoralised by three years of civil war. In 311, they captured Luoyang, and with it the Jin emperor Sima Chi (Emperor Huai). In 316, the next Jin emperor was captured in
Chang'an, and the whole of north China came under Xiongnu rule while remnants of the Jin dynasty survived in the south (known to historians as the Eastern Jin).
Liu Yao's Former Zhao (318-329)
In 318, after suppressing a coup by a powerful minister in the Xiongnu-Han court (in which the Xiongnu-Han emperor and a large proportion of the aristocracy were massacred), the Xiongnu prince
Liu Yao moved the Xiongnu-Han capital from Pingyang to Chang'an and renamed the dynasty as Zhao (it is hence known to historians collectively as
Han Zhao). However, the eastern part of north China came under the control of a rebel Xiongnu-Han general of
Jie (probably
Yeniseian) ancestry named
Shi Le. Liu Yao and Shi Le fought a long war until 329, when Liu Yao was captured in battle and executed. Chang'an fell to Shi Le soon after, and the Xiongnu dynasty was wiped out. North China was ruled by Shi Le's
Later Zhao dynasty for the next 20 years.
However, the "Liu" Xiongnu remained active in the north for at least another century.
Tiefu & Xia (260-431)
The northern
Tiefu branch of the Xiongnu gained control of the Inner Mongolian region in the 10 years between the conquest of the
Tuoba Xianbei state of Dai by the
Former Qin empire in 376, and its restoration in 386 as the
Northern Wei. After 386, the Tiefu were gradually destroyed by or surrendered to the Tuoba, with the submitting Tiefu becoming known as the Dugu.
Liu Bobo, a surviving prince of the Tiefu fled to the
Ordos Loop, where he founded a state called the Xia (thus named because of the Xiongnu's supposed ancestry from the Xia dynasty) and changed his surname to Helian (赫連). The Helian-Xia state was conquered by the Northern Wei in 428-431, and the Xiongnu thenceforth effectively ceased to play a major role in Chinese history, assimilating into the Xianbei and Han ethnicities.
Juqu & Northern Liang (401-460)
The Juqu were a branch of the Xiongnu. Their leader
Juqu Mengxun took over the
Northern Liang by overthrowing the former puppet ruler
Duan Ye. By
439, the Juqu power was destroyed by the
Northern Wei. Their remnants were then settled in the city of
Gaochang before being destroyed by the
Rouran.
Northern Xiongnu becoming the Huns
Etymology of 匈
Source: http://starling.rinet.ru |
| Preclassic Old Chinese: |
sŋoŋ |
| Classic Old Chinese: |
ŋ̥oŋ |
| Postclassic Old Chinese: |
hoŋ |
| Middle Chinese: |
xöuŋ |
| Modern Cantonese: |
hūng |
| Modern Mandarin: |
xiōng |
| Modern Sino-Korean: |
hyung |
Rouran with the
Avars, oversimplifications have led to the Xiongnu often being identified with the
Huns, who populated the frontiers of
Europe. The connection started with the writings of the eighteenth century French historian de Guignes, who noticed that a few of the barbarian tribes north of China associated with the Xiongnu had been named "Hun" with varying Chinese characters. This theory remains at the level of speculation, although it's accepted by some scholars, including Chinese ones. DNA testing of Hun remains hasn't proven conclusive in determining the origin of the Huns.
Linguistically, it's important to understand that "
xiōngnú" is only the modern
standard Mandarin pronunciation (based on the
Beijing dialect) of "匈奴". At the time of Hunnish contact with the western world (the 4th–6th centuries AD), the sound of the character "匈" has been reconstructed as /hoŋ/.
The supposed sound of the first character has a clear similarity with the name "Hun" in European languages. Whether this is evidence of kinship or mere coincidence is hard to tell. It could lend credence to the theory that the Huns were in fact descendants of the Northern Xiongnu who migrated westward, or that the Huns were using a name borrowed from the Northern Xiongnu, or that these Xiongnu made up part of the Hun confederation.
The traditional etymology of "匈" is that it's as pictogram of the facial features of one of these people, wearing a helmet, with the "x" under the helmet representing the scars they inflicted on their faces to frighten their enemies. However, there's no actual evidence for this interpretation.
In modern Chinese, the character "匈" is used in four ways: to mean "chest" (written 胸 in this sense as the set of Chinese characters evolves), in the name 匈奴
Xiōngnú "Xiongnu", in the word 匈人
Xiōngrén "Hun [person]", and in the name 匈牙利
Xiōngyálì "
Hungary". The last of these is a modern coinage which may derive from the belief that the Huns were related to the Xiongnu.
The second character, "奴", appears to have no parallel in Western terminology. Its contemporary pronunciation was /nhō/, and it means "slave", although it's possible that it has only a phonetic role in the name 匈奴. There is almost certainly no connection between the "chest" meaning of 匈 and its ethnic meaning. There might conceivably be some sort of connection with the identically pronounced word "凶", which means "fierce", "ferocious", "inauspicious", "bad", or "violent act". Most probably, the word derives from the tribe's own name for itself as a semi-phonetic transliteration into Chinese, and the character was chosen somewhat arbitrarily — a practice that continues today in Chinese renderings of foreign names.
Although the phonetic side of the question isn't conclusive, new results from Central Asia might shift the balance in favor of a political and cultural link between the Xiongnu and the Huns. The Central Asian sources of the 4th century translated in both direction Xiongnu by Huns (in the Sogdian Ancient Letters, the Xiongnu in Northern China are named xwn, while in the Buddhist translations by Dharmarakhsa Huna of the Indian text is translated Xiongnu). Moreover, from an archaeological point of view, it's certain that the Hunnic cauldrons are similar to the Ordos Xiongnu ones. Moreover, they were used in the same rituals, as in Hungary and in the Ordos they were found buried in river banks.
Another clue in the link between the Xiongnu and the Huns is indicated by an old Byzantine codex dating back to 14th century. Inside the codex was a copy of a list from the early Middle Ages (7-8th century) in an old
Slav language. This was redecoded and translated by
Omeljan Pritsak professor of history and language (at Lvov, Hamburg and Harvard University) in 1955 and named: "The Old-Bulgarian King List" (
Nominalia of the Bulgarian Khans). This contains the names and descendants of the
Hun kings` dynasty (Clan
Dulo) (from which descends the first ruler house of the European
Bulgaria (see there)). On the start of it's the great
Mao-Tun (Modu shanyu), who established the Xiongnu Empire. Among the other descendants` names is the name of
Ernakh, the youngest son of
Attila The Hun, who founded the Volga-Bulgarian Empire (Volga-Bulgaria, Proto-Bulgars) at the Volga (Etele) river in 453. It indicates that the Xiongnu and the
Huns lived under the same ruler dynasty. So the possibility of Xiongnu eventually becoming the
Huns is suggested by this codex.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Xiongnu'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://xiongnu.totallyexplained.com">Xiongnu Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
