Table of Contents see Title Page and Introduction

Posting's notes and explanations, added to the text of the author and not noted specially, are highlighted in blue font, shown in (blue italics) in parentheses and in blue boxes. Page numbers are shown at the end of the page in blue. Itil is the native name of the river called Volga in Russian sources. Inimitably funny graphics of some Tatar letters was replaced with conventional symbols or phonetic depiction. The book footnotes, scattered through the pages, are combined together, without editing. In some cases, footnotes are shown with page number and footnote number. Only footnotes needed to substantiate unconventional and novel concepts are copied to the respective pages.

1. Huns, Sarmatians and their descendants

In the postwar (WWII) years of the last century, thanks to the intense work of archaeologists in the Itil basin and Urals region were excavated and investigated numerous burial and kurgans which by tradition were called “Sarmatian”.

Earlier than Sarmatians, the Sauromatian tribes, also known to the ancient authors, lived in the Eastern European steppes in 7th - 4th c. BC, and the “Iranian-speaking” Sarmatians of some modern writers ostensibly inhabited the area from 4th c. BC to 2nd c. AD.

Sarmatians' heirs were the western Türks and Alan tribes. In Türkic the name of this tribe is not an ethnonym, but a nickname “Steppe Man” or “Union of Steppe tribes”. A renowned archaeologist N.Ya.Merpert connected Alans with the Saltov (Saltovo-Mayak), i.e. the Hunno-Khazar archaeological culture. Another well-known archaeologist A.P.Smirnov did not doubt about the Sarmatian roots of the Bulgar culture.

The objective of this work is not “ancientization” of the Hunno-Bulgars' history and culture, as it may seem, but a pursuit of objectivity in the research and study of historical processes and re-creation of real historical reality of the past.

Archaeologist S.A.Pletneva, referring to the Alano-Bulgar antiquities, stands more firmly and draws attention to the lack of references to the Sarmatian tribes in the earlier classical sources. She writes, “Notably, none of the early medieval writers writing about the steppe peoples of that time never  mentioned neither Sarmats nor Alans”. Thus, can be concluded that the very appearance of the ethnonyms “Sarmats” or “Alans” is associated only with the pre-Hun period, i.e. the beginning of our era.

Apparently, the wide spread in the Hunnic-Türkic world word “saru”, “sarma” - “to wrap”, “to settle (clear of sediment)”, “a swarm”, i.e. “detached”, with a plural suffix “at” is became “Sarmat” and apparently meant a new western confederation of Hunnic-speaking tribes, before the word or ethnonym 'Huns' gained wide distribution.

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In the “Sarmatian” kurgans archaeologists have discovered numerous vessels of precious metals, gold jewelry, art objects, and even an object with a Hunnic inscription, and most importantly, splendid weapons, including stirrups for a rider with sword, and long swords - the primary and new, unknown in Europe type of the Hunnic offensive weapons. But in the history and culture of the Eastern Europe, “Sarmatians” have not left a bright, distinctive trace. So, where have disappeared to without a trace the known from the ancient written sources kurgans of the famous Hun tribes that a little later emerged from the Eastern Europe, and particularly from Paskatir, or the “Land of the Great Bulgaria”, as wrote William de Rubruck?

Apparently, it is primarily the Hunnic culture, fairly well-known from the written sources. According to the Hunnic legend, cited by the 5th c. writer Prisk Pannonian, Attila was proud of the “sacred” sword of the Huns, and thought that a possessor of such a weapon can become a master of the world (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Two-handed sword and helmet of the Huns from the Tura (Turayevo) burial in the Kama area (4th-5th cc.) and the sword of the Bulgars king Kurbat (7th c.)

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Such Hun's weaponsand a greatest gift of strategist allowed Attila not only to withstand the Romans, but also to win over and rally around him many peoples of Europe in the fight against the powerful slave-owning empire, in particular the Eastern Germans. Therefore, the Latin authors still in the 3rd c. called the state created by the Huns a “Scythicus and Germanicus”,⁶ and the Huns - “Royal Scythians”.

6 Latyshev V.V. Ancient Greek and Latin writers about Scythia and Caucasus. St. Petersburg., 1904-1906. Ch 1-2.

It seems that this was a first powerful state which during a period of its  flourishing encompassed on equal footing both relatively small and the largest tribes of the Eastern and Western Europe, they were givan a chance to fight for their freedom with a fairly strong slavery machine.

Attila succeeded in defeat the invincible cohorts of Roman legionaries led by Aetius (with whom he was acquainted since back in his younger years) in a really tough “Battle of the Nations” on the Catalaun fields near Paris in 451, and in pursuit of the retreating troops to take by storm the former Roman capital of Naples and other cities, and reach Rome. The Roman emperor had personally killed the unfortunate commander Aetius.

That the only at the request of the delegation of the townspeople led by the Pope, who almost on his knees begged not to destroy the city, Attila actually desided not to take Rome by storm, is ignored by some modern researchers. By the way, according to Jordan, the Attila kindness in respect to Rome was sang in nritual songs by the Attila's soldiers during his funeral after his sudden death.

Some European historians, opposed to the leader of the Huns for ideological reasons, tendentiously believe that Attila was defeated in the Catalaun battle. Interestingly, Hitler himself followed this version, he reasoned: “If, for example, the battle on the Catalaun fields has not led to the Rome victory over the Huns, the cultural flourishing of Europe would have been impossible, and the cultured world of the time would inevitably come to the decline, as would happen with us in the event of the defeat by the Soviets”.

It should be added that no one knows a “Sarmatian” state that corresponds to the rich “Sarmatian” archaeological culture. At the same time from written sources is well known the strong state created by the Huns that encompassed many nations of the Central and Eastern Europe, and that lasted for about three centuries, able to stand up against such fairly strong slave-owning empire as Rome, although it outlived its time.

However, according to the archaeological readings, are “unknown” either Huns' settlements nor cities. While a member of the Roman embassy ​​headed by Maximin, the said writer Prisk Pannonian, for example, saw with his own eyes the Attila's capital city, was present at a magnificent ceremonial reception in the palace of the ruler in honor of the arrival of the delegation, and fairly in detail described what he had seen. Perhaps it was the oldest Kyiv. In any case, the Vikings in the 9th-10th cc. called this city “Könugard” (King's fort). As  shall be seen below, according to the antique and early medieval coins written sources, the title of “köng” or “king” is the title of the  Hun rulers. By the way, linguists also derive the name of the city Kishinev from the Türkic term “keshene”, which means “crypt”, “kurgan”.

In any case, we do not have records on significant kurgans of the western Huns, they are “scattered” by the modern archaeologists primarily between the Scythians and Sarmatians. Although the same Prisk Pannonian reports that Attila began hostilities against Rome because he was not handed over the Bishop Silvan of Marga, who staged looting excavations (modern Bulgaria, kurgan cemetery north of Danube) and stole precious dishes from the ancient Hunnic graves. According to the sources, Attila was solemnly buried according to the rite of the Huns, and a huge kurgan was poured over his grave.

By the way, the historian of the 6th c. Jordan, referring to the part (not preserved) of the Prisk work, writes that after Attila's burial and dressing up of the kurgan, was organized a funeral feast, which in the Hunic is called “strava”. Finding the meaning of the word stimulated extensive literature. Still in 19th c., German researchers turned their attention to it, and hypothesized that perhaps this is s Gothic word “strauyan” - “construction” and N.A.Kotlyarevsky believed that the Slavic languages ​​have this word with a meaning “eat”. A translator of the Jordan works into Russian language E.Ch. Skrjipskaya also holds to the hypothesis of a Slavic origin of this word.

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This discussion, oddly enough, does not involve a rather important factor - the Hunnic-Türkic language. Turning to it, immediately catches an eye a cluster of three consonants at the beginning of the word “Strava”, atypical Hunnic-Türkic language, apparently made by scribes or informants. (For example, the Türkic-Tatar word “tustagan” adopted by Russian language in the form “stakan” (drinking glass) a Türk pronounces as “ystakan”.) This suggests that the cited word “strava” omitted the initial vowel, i.e. the word should be pronounced as “ystrava”, from the Hunnic-Türkic word “ystyr” or “ystrau”.

After adoption of Islam, in the Western Türkic languages ​​such words, associated with the gentile rituals, were gradually modified or disappeared from circulation. However, in the Karaim language (due to the Karaims' adoption of Judaism during the Khazar period), which found itself practically isolated from the other literate Türkic languages, the words with the above stem, with an ancient form and amazingly peculiar obsolete meaning constitutes a whole nest. For example, “ystyr”, “yystyr” is “remove, delete”, “ystyryldy atalaryna” (departed to forefathers) is “has died”, “ystyrylgan uluslaryna” (deleted from his ulus) is “deceased”. Thus, apparently, “strava” or “ystrau” was a Hunnic name for the funeral feast that took place after the burial of the deceased in the huge complex kurgan with internal chambers, and clean-up of the area.²

11.2 Karaim-Russian-Polish dictionary. Moscow, 1974. p. 652.

The latest archaeological studies show that buried in the “Sarmatian” kurgans Huns apparently started to “resent ”! The matter is that the Huns not only possessed a high culture in the military affairs, but also had their own script.

In one of the “Sarmatian” burials near a skeleton was discovered a jade talisman with Hunnic inscription. The letters of the distinct text, associated with the burial ritual, are repeated twice on the same object ³.

11.3  Medvedev A.P. Burial of a warrior in Chertovits cemetery (Voronej Province)// History and Culture of the Sarmatians. Saratov, 1983. p. 126.

These letters look as follows: . These are well-recognizable letters of the Hunnic alphabet that emerged still in the antique times and, judging from the Horezmian coins, was active from 2nd c. BC to 8th c. AD, i.e. in the pre-Islamic period. The inscription reads: “Alng” (the last letter -n- is written by a special letter indicating a nasal “n”) - “thy al”. Therefore, it is a unique, specially deposited in the grave by the loved ones, precious talisman, a last gift - the “al”, i.e. what is laid “in front of you”. That the inscription is not a clutch of random carving, as thought the author of the find, but is a text of a ritual nature, is evidenced by the grounded in the Hunnic euphemism repeat “backward” engraving of the same text on the same object, i.e. in the ritual, hidden, modified form: . In comparatively late Bulgarian epigraphic monuments of the Islamic period this word occurs in the form of “alty”, i.e. “his al” (his tombstone)¹.

12.1 Muhamadiev A. Ancient Coins of Kazan. Kazan, 2005. p. 50.

The Türko-Tatar “al” is really a broad wonderfully rich formative word. For example, “oyaldy” is “anteroom” (literally, in front of house), “ishegaldy” is “yard” (in front of door), “kuz aldy” is “horizon” (in front of the eyes), etc., etc.
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2. Hun “Invasion”, or Great Migration

Ivan IV captured Kazan and Astrakhan, slaughtered and completely annihilated the Türko-Tatar population in the cities of the Itil basin and Western Siberia. There were resettled “our people”, i.e. the military classes and the Josephite men of the new militant ideology, and they ceased to be the Tatar cities. Not only the Tatars, but also other nations, such as Mari, were forbidden to live in the cities.

The rebel movements were suppressed with so far unprecedented cruelty: the captives had their nostrils torn up, they were hanged by their ribs, they were impaled, not only the villages, but also the people were burned at the stake.

What happened to the good old provincial Eastern Europe, where for centuries from old used to coexisted the Slavic and Türkic states? Neither the Khazars, nor Bulgars, nor Kyivans knew anything like that.

Apparently, the cause was that in Europe started entirely new form of seizure of the territories of neighboring or distant countries and peoples, i.e. a colonial boom. The new to the Eastern Europe “Ostpolitik” in Russia was armed and supported by a new militant religion: the church-political movement of Josephites (the leader of whom was Joseph Volotsky/Volokolamsky), which acquired its final form in the first half of the 16th c. Before burning at the stake adherents of other religions, the militant clerics, like in Europe, initially incarcerated and burned their Orthodox opponents, the supporters of spiritual freedom and independence of the church from the secular power. For the supporters of the hitherto traditional Orthodoxy that taught tolerance was found a cliché - they started to be besmirched as “Judaizers” and their teachings, the “ancient Orthodox” faith  started to be besmirched as “heresy”. For example, one of the “heretics”,  imprisoned for life M.Bashkov, was led from the kremlin (fortress), taken to a wooden cage, and burned.

The “Eastern policy” was later supported and carried on by the succeeding Russian autocratic rulers. As a result of this policy, were “mastered” not only new territories, destroying or “mastering” ancient cities, killing and exiling population, but in the process also formed a new trend, gradually transformed into tradition - assigning offensive cliche to the conquered peoples, and in a pursuit of certain final objectives, a tendentiously perverted presentation of their history.
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Perhaps that is why were issued unprecedented orders of a certain character: “April day 10, 1631, in the reign of Michail Fedorovich, Astrakhan is built up in stone,... ordered to take brick at Akhtuba river (a channel of Itil) and the Khan's mosque and the Khan's house to demolish, for the construction to have sufficient white stone and iron from Akhtuba”¹.

Dozens of “Tatar” settlements on the Volga River, including royal palaces, huge mausoleums, ascending to the Batu time, and the mosques of the largest cities of Eastern Europe - Sarai al-Mahrusa or Sarai al-Jadid, were destroyed by the Czar's decree, dismantled and carried away as bricks not only for the construction of the Astrakhan kremlin (fortress), i.e. of the 16th c. city with powerful defensive walls many meters thick, but also for the erection of huge churches.

These cities had Türkic names: Sarai, Saraichuk, Aksarai, etc. The word “sarai”, for example, is frequent in the composition “Blessed knowledge” of the 11th c. Türkic poet and thinker Yusuf Balasaguni. The names of the Lower Itil basin cities “Sarai al-Mahrusa” or “Sarai al-Jadid” are preserved not only in the many written sources, but also are minted on numbering in many thousands corpuses of silver and copper coins ifrom their mints. Judging by the coins, none of them had the “assigned” by modern Russian researchers artificially Mongolized names such as “Sarai-Batu” or “Sarai-Berke”.

The emerging capitalist relations introduced changes to the buried in the ground hoards. Huge ancient burial kurgans, spread from the Altai to Crimea, which were not destroyed by the Huns, nor even by the most savage Mongols, were looted during looting excavation named by the notable archeologist A.P. Smirnov “a general's archeology”. Gradually, the colonization of the “new lands” reached America (Alaska) (and California. The Russian borders reached Spain. California, here I come!).

Clearly, colonization is not a result of the Great Migration, although it resembles it. With such approach, we would have started to also “migrate” other nations, such as the Brits to India or somewhere else, to Africa, etc. Historians do not call such events “invasion” or “migration of peoples”, although it is totally unclear what's the difference. Perhaps this is because in the history of the brutal colonial conquests the motifs and political situation are quite well-known.

Not so simple is the case with the early history of the East, not to mention the ancient period. Therefore historians, especially pseudo-experts in the field, often repeat once said someone's words and expressed opinions, especially of the Eurocentrists, without appreciating that they not only can be one-sided or plain wrong, but also insulting.

The early history of the Huns and their descendants, the early Türks, is quite glowingly reflected in the Chinese historical sources and is well studied. They mention Huns as early as the 9th c. BC. Eastern state of the Huns existed from the 3rd c. BC to the 1st c. BC. Huns' major reformer, statesman and known military leader was Boskhar. According to the Chinese sources and the Horezmian coins, it was he who introduced the Hunnic writing, and perhaps the very minting of coins with the names of the Hun rulers. In 176 BC Boskhar proudly wrote to his tributary Chinese emperor that with his troops he campaigned in the west and that now the 26 possessions constitute a “single house” with the Huns.

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We must assume that a part of the “single house” also included some tribes in the Eastern Europe, as usually happened in conquest campaigns of that type, as for example were the campaigns of Istemi Kagan or Chingis Khan.

Historical examples demonstrate that the empires started in the east sought to expand to the west (like, by the way, the western empires sought to expand to the east) and relatively quickly expanded boundaries of their possessions, if not always to Western Europe, then surely to the N. Pontic areas. For example, 6th c. Kagan of the Türks, Istemi, having stabilized his empire in the east, undertook an expedition to the west, and added to it the N. Pontic and Crimea. However, these were not vacant lands, but the possessions with Hunnic-Türkic population. For example, in the Crimea, the natives were Taurs (in the Hunnic - “mountaineers”). One of the Greek colonial cities there had a mixed with the native language name “Panticapaeum” (“kapu” in Old Türkic is gate, that is the gateway to Pont), and the N. Pontic area was the possession of the Bulgars, who after becoming a part of the Türkic Kaganate empire, like the Khazars, started to be called “Türks”, although they retained their tribal languages ​​and names.

To be fair, should be added that the Türkic tribes (Khazars, Bulgars, Suvars, etc.) on the “whim” of the tip of a pen of some historians after the Chingis Khan invasion “disappeared” from the historical arena. Of the Mongols' campaigns many readers are knowledgeable enough. However, not everyone knows that on the bank of the river Kalka (called so after Khazar Kagan Kalga of Ashina dynasty, 657-663) against Subedei's Mongolian troops (actually, more Türkic Enisei Kirgizes than Mongols) shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rus troops fought the Türkic tribes of Sarochins (“Polovetses” of the Rus chronicles) (The Slavified name Sarochins comes from the typical Türkic element “Sary” = Pale, Yellowish, Dirty White, present in numerous ethnonyms: Sary As, Sarir, Saragur, Saryg, Sarysün, Kuman, Kipchak, Akkoyunly, Ak Nogai, where Sary = Ku = Ak).

Of the Subedei's crushing the Rus and their Polovetses allies is also fairly well known from our textbooks. But where the Mongolian troops were gone to, and most importantly why they did not continue their westward march according to the Chingis Khan's slogan  “Punishment of the western region”? Especially after such a large victory.

Do not despair, even the drafters of the Russian textbooks on the history of our country do not always know this. About destruction by the Bulgars troops of the Chingis Khan army led by the famous military commander Subedei eloquently tell the new archaeological materials. This is described later in more detail.

Thus, the previously mentioned westward campaign, of the outstanding reformer (for example, according to his reform that resembles “Peter I Table of Ranks”, the state officials were divided into 24 ranks) and the ancient commander Boskhar, took place in 176 BC. After about two centuries after Boskhar, the weakened by infighting Hun empire was destroyed by the Chinese in alliance with some steppe peoples, and fell apart at the beginning of the 1st c. BC.

Fig. 2. Horezmian coin of Boskhar (2nd c. BC) with an inscription “Turan Yabgu” http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/numi_0484-8942_2005_num_6_161_2598 http://www.sogdcoins.narod.ru/english/khwarezm/coins2.html
	Rendition
jbqoy trγn	Tamga

Fig. 2. Horezmian coin of Boskhar (2nd c. BC)

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The pogrom of the Huns and their slaughter continued for quite a long time, and went with typical for the slaveholder retribution bloody brutality and mass murder not only of the vanquished warriors, but also the peaceful population. Just think, what “invasion of the Huns” in the Attila's days, i.e. in 5th c., can be argued almost five centuries after the collapse of the Eastern Hun powerful empire?

It's the same thing as we, without attention, would talk about a terrible “Mongol invasion” not in the 13th c., but in the 18th c., i.e. during the reign of Peter I.

3. Coins of the Huns

As a young  numismatist-researcher, once I went on a business trip to Ijevsk (Udmurtia, native name Ijkar, 56.8°N 53.2°E), where the Faculty of History Dean R.D.Goldin, herself an archaeologist, invited me to read at the university a lecture course for the students and young archaeology scientists, about the medieval Türko-Tatar coins. The archaeologists' interest in numismatics is understandable, they excavated annually burial kurgans, were finding numerous medieval coins. They were dating excavation sites and burial kurgans fairly accurately. For the Department of Field Studies in Moscow to issue an Open List,  a permit to conduct excavations in the following year, they had to submit a proper report on the excavations, including well-dated and defined coins. It was there that for the first time archaeologists have shown me entirely unique coins with minted on them some bearded kings and completely unknown script.

Little did I know then that numerous finds of coins are not accidental and that the earliest centers of the Hunno-Bulgars were just in the Middle and Upper Kama area. A map of famous 12th c. Arab cartographer Idrisi has an inscription in the Perm area: “the land of the remaining Bulgars from the Türks”. And also that the coins and numerous artistically made vessels of precious metals with unknown script testified of the existence of a unified trade and economic area with  Horezm, highly developed still in the ancient times, and mostly populated by Hunnic-Türkic tribes.

The Türko-Tatar coins I identified on the run, as they say, on the tooth. But to read and identify the unfamiliar to me Horezmian coins, with unknown script, I naturally could not do. Having responded that KSU (Kazan State University) has a very rich library, I would identify these coins from the literature, and would send them back with someone, I took the coins with me.

A study of literature has shown that the coins with unknown script have not been convincingly read yet... Oddly enough, it turned out that the last word in this particular case had the Turkestan medieval scholar al-Biruni, who in his work several times gives a list of pre-Islamic rulers of Horezm.

I succeeded in to “coping” with the coins of the Ijevsk archaeologists, i.e. to read and identify the Horezmian coins only as a result of hard work, studying and thumbing through all available numismatic literature, and not only it, for more than two years.
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It turned out that these Horezmian coins attracted attention still in the middle of the 19th c. A known numismatist W. von Tizenhauzen (Baron von Tiesenhausen, aka Vladimir Gustavovich, 1825-1902) sent for identification  four such coins found in a bronze vessel in the Perm area to the English numismatist E.Thomas, Esq. E.Tomas could not identify them, but was the first to note the Aramaic character of inscriptions. Curiously however, E.Tomas found that one of the coins from the Kama area seemed  to be close to the Bactrian coins, i.e. to the ancient period of the Horezmian coinage. I also studied and read the latter.

But it is easy to say that I have read them! It actually turned out to be a labor-intensive work for many years! However, if luck leads in a right direction among scientific works, it is possible to find good “advisors”. I did have good advisers. First, it was the medieval scholar al-Biruni. He left a fairly detailed list of pre-Islamic rulers of Horezm. Next, the English numismatist E.Tomas pointed to a right direction where to look for the origin of the alphabet to read the coin inscriptions. It was the most ancient, the Aramaic alphabet, although almost all known alphabets of the western world, and not only they, in the broad sense of the word, whether it be Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Arabic, Persian, Uigur, etc., came from the same Aramaic script system that emerged back in the 9th c. BC!

Next, the famous scientist S.P. Tolstov, who in the 1930s of the last century conducted archaeological excavations in Horezm, found not only ancient artifacts, but thousands of Horezmian coins, and left solid academic works on the ancient Horezm. Perhaps most important, not only for the proper reading, but also for convincing identification of ancient Horezmian coins was a monograph of the S.P. Tolstov's student B.I. Vainberg “Coins of Ancient Horezm”, published in 1977 in Moscow. It shows many variations of the inscriptions for the same type of coins. Equally important also were the coins found in archaeological excavations of the ancient objects in the Kama basin.

As in any enterprise, identification of the Hun coins also unveiled its own peculiarities and problems. Some numismatists, taking up the list of the Horezm kings, tried to identify antique and more recent coins by their names. But no, nothing happened! The famous scientist Biruni had done a good deed for the history with his list of the ancient pre-Islamic Horezm kings. Apparently, he was well aware of the history of his millennium of the 10th c. But what was happening before that, at the ancient times, he could only say in general terms.

It turns out that to know the names of the ancient Horezm kings, to be included in his list, he could not even if he wanted to. The names of the rulers were not minted on the antique coins! That is due to the Hun's taboos and euphemisms associated with a motive of protecting ruling king from conjurers or harm. For example, even later in the 8th c., at the funerals of the Türk rulers the use of the word “death” was under taboo. It was impermissible to write on the memorial stone that he had died. Therefore, this word could only be written in allegorical form “ochdy”, i.e. “flew away”.
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That some Horezmian coins were issued in the antique period is beyond doubts. Although they are not dated, they have distinct footmark and imprint of their time. The first coins of the ancient cities were usually struck as initiations of the foreign coins that were regularly traded on the market and were well known to the trading people of the city. Those examples for the Horezm were coins of the Bactria,  the ancient state created by the Hellenes after the death of Alexander the Great, and minted in the name of Basileus, i.e. the “King” Eucratides (200-150 BC).

At first glance, the earliest minted Khwarezmian coin is not much different from the Bactrian coins: a classic portrait of Eucratides and a Greek inscription.

However, on closer inspection noticeable are not only numerous errors in the inscription, but also the Horezm tamga or coat of arms in the lower left corner on the reverse side of the coins, for thousands of years placed on the Horezmian coins, until the advent of Islam in the 8th c. (Fig. 3). Then, on the Horezmian coins appeared portraits of the Horezmian rulers, but still for a long time with deformed Greek inscription (Fig. 4).

Finally, gradually were appearing coins not only with the portraits the Horezmian rulers, but with inscriptions written on heretofore unknown script (Fig. 5).

To present a more complete picture on the place of euphemisms in the history and life of the Hunno-Bulgars, here are a few examples of the antique coins. FCtom their legends, they are coins of the Huns, but none of them gives the name of the ruler who minted these coins.

These coins show only their titles, such as “yabgu”, which was the highest known Hunic title in the ancient period (according to the Chinese sources “Shanyu”), and the place of issue, depicted by the Horezmian tamga.

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A large quantity of coins were minted in the name of “Shad”, i.e. princes (Crown Princes) or local viceroys (or Crown Princes serving as viceroys). Some coins were even issued in the name of the state called “Hunhuk” - literally, “ten arrows”, i.e. denoting “ten tribal alliances” (or “tribal alliance of ten tribes”), later transformed into self-appellation of the Huns in the form of “Hunhuk” (Unuk) or simply “Hun”.

Apparently, such desire to coin money anonymously was caused by the terrible fear of harm by the Hun rulers. In all fairness, it was not peculiar to the Huns, but also to the other nations. For example, Chinese sources reported that an emperor wrote a manifest and sent it to the Chinese troops with a warning that they are in grave danger. It turns out that he had learned from his spies that at the river crossings where Chinese troops had to pass, Huns have buried  enchanted carcasses of bulls.

Later, in the early Middle Ages before the adoption of Islam in the 8th c., in Horezm in the name of the Hun rulers were regularly minted coins, not only with the titles, but also indicating the name of the ruler who minted coins.

4. The Hunnic Writing, or how following the coins, the vessels, bowls, and precious metal jewelry “began to talk” in Hunno-Bulgar language

Sometime in the 2nd-3rd cc. BC was created a Hun state between the Itil basin, Urals and North Caucasus, of which the western authors were well-informed. However, this state was formed not as a result of some kind of the Hun “invasion” from the east. According to the Horezmian literature and religion of the Manichean-Buddhist character that penetrated the Itil basin and Urals area, this entity inhabited newcomer ancestors of the Bulgars - Ephthalites from the Turan-Turkestan territories, and Finno-Ugric tribes, which high culture, will be discussed further.

The Huns in the Caspian steppes were first mentioned from the 2nd c. BC. However, it seems that the name “Huns” was not a widely used name, but only a name of individual eastern tribes that infiltrated the Itil basin. In the west, these Hunnic-speaking tribes had still more generic older names “Sarmats” or “Alans”.

As can be seen from the work of William de Rubruk (ca 1220 – ca 1293), who sufficiently knew the works of his ancient Byzantine and Roman predecessors that did not reach us, he calls the country from which the Huns of the Attila time came “Paskatir”, and adds, “which actually is the Great Bulgaria”.

Paskatir is probably an older name for the river habitat located north of the Kama river, or the homeland of the early Bulgars. The Arab cartographer of the 12th c. Idrisi, does place north of Bulgaria in the Perm area the “land of the remaining Bulgars from the Türks”. The ancient Türkic word “pus” (pos) means “to hide”, “to hunker down”. The ending “ir” (yer) in the word “Paskatir” is “earth, land”, “remote place”. Judging from the numerous archaeological materials, this forced mass migration of the Bulgars into the Perm area went on in 3rd-6th cc.
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By the way, following the distinctive name form for the city of Horezm (a known philologist and historian M.Z. Zakiev interprets it as Chuarasm/Chorasm/Huarasm - “Interfluve”), the toponym “Perm” can be interpreted as Bierim (Great Yearth, Land). In both cases the distinct suffix “m” resembles the unusual spelling of the numeral “egerm” (twenty) in the inscriptions on the Bulgar epigraphical monuments.

The linguistic peculiarities of the Hunno-Horezmian pre-Islamic script on numerous artistically made vessels and coins that connect the Itil basin and Urals with the Turan and later Turkestan, and with Mawarannahr (Arabic - “beyond the river”) during Arab penetration, testify of the Bulgars' Middle Asian roots, who created their own state, in particular the Ephthalite state, or the so-called “White Huns” state, later in the 6th c. crushed in the north of the Middle Asia by the Türkic Kagan Istemi in alliance with the Shah of Persia.

According to Procopius of Cesarea: “Although Ephthalites are the people of the Hunnic tribe, they are not mixed and are not linked with the Huns known to us, for they do not have any adjacent land, nor live near them; for they neighbor the Persians in the north, where is the city called Gorgo (Urgench. - AM), right at the Persian border; there between them and Persians often occur wars for the borders, for they are not nomads like the other Hunnic tribes, but from the beginning occupied the fertile country, so they never attacked the Roman lands other than with the army of the Medes. Of all the Huns they alone have white bodies... “.

The presence of pretty numerous Hunno-Bulgar inscriptions on vessels and their content also create some problems. They still have not been read. Typically, researchers traditionally attributed such artistic objects to the work of Persian, Sogdian, or Indian origin, although a vast majority of them were found in the Ural area, where were located the earliest Hunno-Bulgar centers. The works on the artistic vessels of precious metals they are called “Sassanian”, after a dynasty of the Persia Shahs.

As we saw, the Hunno-Bulgar character of the inscriptions allows to revise that tendentious assertion. Especially since researchers themselves state that “comparison of analyses of the objects and coins from the Hermitage collection clearly shows that in most cases the chemical analysis of coins and objects' silver show completely different sources of silver”. Consequently, the silver of the Sassanid coins is totally different from the silver of the vessels and bowls, and they come from different sources. A chemical analysis of the mined in the Urals “Kama silver” would likely yield interesting results.

Perhaps not by chance the finds of such objects in Persia are numbered in low single digits. Meanwhile, between the Itil basin, Urals. and N. Pontic, i.e. in the Khazar and Bulgar lands, were found several hundred exemplars. If were minted coins with superb portraits of rulers and with their own script, then there were craftsmen who could produce artistically made vessels with various scenes and their own writing.
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Indeed, the design of some vessels does not leave any doubts that the Manichean type religious inscriptions in the Hunno-Bulgar language were produced concurrently with the ornaments or images. But, unfortunately, the time has been lost. Now to visually compare images and read inscriptions takes a journey to the metropolitan museums of numerous countries where these objects ended up after being found during looting excavations in the territory of the Great Bulgaria.

Historians and art critics still believe that such artistic products of precious metals reached the Kama basin in a course of trade with semi-wild forest tribes (I.e. Fennic tribes). Peculiarly, the Persians seem to have been so fond of wearing clothes made if fox and bear fur that merchants were bringing all Persian gold or silver vessels from the tables of the royal palaces to trade in the Kama basin. And the traders even did not know the roads to the Slavic forests in the west or to the Siberian forests in the east, located much closer to the Turkestan, which laid on the way of the three-month trade route to the land of the Bulgars!

Indeed, the Soviet loyal party functionaries-scientists could not call these works of art to be of the ancestors of the Tatars, who were branded back in the 17th-19th cc. with an offensive cliche “Tatar-Mongols”! Such disregard for the Türko-Tatar language (since the Türkic languages ​​are agglutinative, and the roots of the words almost do not change, to read the inscriptions was needed to at least try to read the inscriptions in the modern Tatar language) apparently contributed to the state that up until now they still remain unread.

For comparison and to clarify the situation, I would like to cite an example. That the ancient Greek culture influenced development of the Roman culture, is clear. It seems that from antiquity to the early Middle Ages, the same effect on the settled Huns and their descendant, the settled Türks, had the ancient culture of the Persian empire. For example, a Tatar poet of the 14th c. Saif Sarai (pronounced Saraee) wrote a book called “Polistan bit-Türki”. This composition in form follows the work written in 1256 by a famous Persian poet Saadi. The Saadi book consisted of interesting short stories and poetic lines between them.

However, mostly following moralizing motives in reciting the stories, Saif Sarai as a gifted and creative poet, in-between the stories, or even without the stories, inserts his own magnificent lyric poems, and the book turns into an original work written in Türkic, and it is called accordingly... So, the Messrs art historians, many “Sasanian” vessels with inscriptions started talking in the Hunno-Bulgar language!

A dish depicting Diggizikh (Digizih) (Fig. 7a) was discovered in a village Kerchev  of Cherdyn district in the Perm province. Perhaps precisely there, after the defeat from the allied forces of the Persian Shah and Türkic Empire Kagan were located the early centers of the Hunno-Bulgars, hence from there come many other vessels of the same kind.

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The Diggizikh dish is kept in the Hermitage. The author managed to inspect it in detail, although the head of the department, a known orientalist B.I. Marshak not for a moment let let out of his hands. As an archaeologist, I understood well his concerns: once some fragile rare find from the digs is let out of the hands, surely some of the inquisitive student would to try to probe it with his teeth, and would damage it.

On the inside of the dish is a classic image of a king on a horseback, slashing with a straight sword an attacking boar. On the king's head sits an unusual crown in the form of the ram's horns. By the way, golden diadems with decoration in the form of horns were found in the Huns' graves (Fig. 7). Above the horns is a disk (Sun). The face of the king is bearded, his mustache is curled up, in his right ear hangs an earring.

On the reverse side of the dish is the inscription, and on its right is placed a tamga, known from the Horezmian coins.

Next on the dish with magnificent handwriting and competently is engraved (or punched) inscription with the Hunnic-Bulgar letters. Tbis writing system was used still in The early Hunnic period in striking the ancient Horezmian coins, and later in the 7th c. the seals on the three golden signet rings from the treasure of the Bulgar King Kurbat were made using the same system. Transliteration:

Kin_gkg Dikkiz Uku kisse - kiu sax-sax bul gur Tengrig!

Translation: Beware of the strike by King (Prince?) Diggizih the Wise, beware of Tengri in the other world!

The inscription was written with magnificent handwriting and competently engraved (or punched) with Hunno-Bulgar letters. The script was used still in the early Hunnic period in minting the ancient Horezmian coins, and later in the 7th c. the same script was used on three gold signet rings from the treasure of the Bulgar King Kurbat.

The text is written in the Hun language. The Attila's son Diggizikh lived in the second half of the 5th c., hence the inscription belongs not to the Old Türkic, but to the Pra-Türkic, i.e. the Hunnic language, although there is no “watershed”: it is one and the same language. It seems that Huns, like their descendants, were really fond of the Persian realities. The word “gur” meaning the “other world” seems to be of the Persian origin (Tr.: adïn azunqa  “other world”).

How did the dish bearing the name of Attila's son Diggizih, who lived in the second half of the 5th c., turned out in the Perm area, is anybody's guess. According to the above Prisk Pannonian, when he as a member of the Byzantine embassy ​​headed by Maximin attended a reception at the Attila palace in the Huns' capital, one of his sons accompanied by his people came back from a long trip. From the discussions, Prisk learned that that traveled to Akatsir (Paskatir) on the occasion of succession there to the imperial power.

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The inscriptions on many other vessels are religious in content. Some of them bear not only inscriptions, but also images of a Buddhist character. These inscriptions are well dated by the Horezmian-Turanian coins of the 5th-6th c. AD that found their way to the Itil and Urals area. Apparently, these vessels of religious nature were used for ritual purposes inside religious structures at the sacred fire.

Thus, on the overall, the relocation of the Hunno-Bulgars to the Itil Basin was not an “invasion” process, but a a result of their displacement from the homeland in the north of Turan, or Turkestan, as the area became known later. Judging from the early medieval written sources, the Ephthalites, i.e. the White Huns, repeatedly crushed the troops of the Persian Shahs who managed to break within the limits of Turan, but still swent on a gradual successful advance of the Persian fire-worshipers into the north of Turkestan.

These events were contributing to the actual impedement of the international trade of the Itil basin Huns with the Middle Asia, which the caravan routes passed on the way to the south-eastern countries. Probably for that reason is notable a gradual development of trade not with the southern territories, but the Huns in the Baikal area, East Turkestan (“Xinjiang”), and through them directly with China.

If the Almighty has not created this trade route, then this whole directed jetstream of the ancient and early medieval Eastern Hun civilization that has reached a high level of development which to some extent changed the face of not only the East, but of the whole Western Europe (although Western historians deny this fact with all their capabilities), it would have been necessary to invent it.

Created by the Huns powerful country in Eastern Europe that united many tribes, including the Goths, starting from the 2nd c. as a consequence of a long struggle, overcame and displaced from Europe the whole slave system, and having fulfilled its mission, it disintegrated in the 5th c.

According to the eminent historian A.N.Bernshtam, Huns brought the peoples of Europe feudalism, i.e. more advanced than the slave system feudal relationship. In any case, Huns brought not only the advanced for their time equipment and weapons, but also the titulature “king” and apparently the whole system of the feudal kingdoms. Thus, the title of the Hun rulers on the coins of the ancient Horezm, with it initial guttural consonant “k” (“Keng”), on the signet golden ring of the Bulgar leader Kurbat turned into a “king” (Fig. 8).

The existence of writing testifies to the Hun society sufficiently high level of development. Before addressing the sedentary culture of the Huns, should be noted a general fallacy or artificiality of the offensive cliche “nomadic peoples”. This is the same as dividing European peoples into alcoholics or non-alcoholics by a consumption of alcohol per capita, because the nomadism and nutrition primarily with meat and milk also in themselves are not connected with the level of culture nor with spiritual qualities of people. Nurishment is primarily connected with the geographical conditions. For example, in the endless steppes, from the Itil to the Elton lake on the
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Kazakhstan border , you will find no rivers or lakes, and even people to ask for directions. And the roads almost are not there. The author himself saw that, traveling in 2007 at the wheel of the car from Kazan to Harabalin district of the Astrakhan province, where are located ruins of the Sarai al-Mahrusa, and even to the Saksin, located on an island at the mouth of the Itil river.

On the way occasionally are seen power lines with charred poles and hanging fragments of the wires. Or small abandoned dead end villages with gaping windows of the houses, like after a nuclear explosion. Due to the continental climate, winters are very cold, and summers are too hot. That is to point out that even during the Soviet era they could not revive these lands and make them “sedentary”.

The Hun states and empires, starting in antiquity, were distinguished not only by the presence of the settled population and best superior weapons, but also by their achievements for their time in the field of technology and construction.

The sedentary culture of the Huns was really quite high. For example, may be mentioned a very early appearance, and to be exact - more than fifteen hundred years before the Europeans - cast iron process and the word “chuen” (the ancient Türkic form for the Russian/Bulgarian/Belorussian/Ukrainian/Latvian word “chugun” = “cast iron”) in the Türko-Tatar and Russian languages. Next, should also be mentioned the origin of the brick production (the ancient Türkic form “kerpich” appears in the 11th c. philologist Mahmud of Kashgari's dictionary, a form “kirbech” in Tatar literature of the 14th c.). Or the circulation of the bronze ingots “soms”, the first metal money of Eastern Europe in the 4th-7th cc. from the Itil basin and Urals areas, which later evolved into coin minting during Khazar and Bulgar periods, and in their turn were in circulation not only in the cities of the Kievan Rus, but also in the Central and Northern Europe.

Of the almost unknown, really high for the antique period, culture of the Huns tell the archeological excavations of the settlements and forts of the 2nd-1st c. BC, located in the fertile lands of the Eastern Baikal. For example, in the Ivolginsky and other settlements have been discovered houses of sunken type, and sometimes fairly large dwelling measuring approximately 6x6 meters, built of adobe bricks, with the heating systems - kans. These amazingly efficient heaters, usually with triple horizontal chimneys that make a warm stove bench - sufa (That's where the English “sofa” came from), later was used not only by the Khazars and Bulgars, but also in mass by the urban residents of the Kipchak Khanate period.

Interestingly, in that settlement was discovered an oven for production of liquid iron - cast iron, in the same workshop were found cast of liquid iron household items, including cast iron mold-boards. The horn consisted of two parts: a pit where ore is melted, and semi-subterranean tunnel through which air was supplied and the furnace hearth temperature was regulated, from which flowed liquid metal. The analyses of slag showed that the raw material for the smelting of iron was local. In the settlement near village Dureny were even found 24 exemplars of the mold-boards, which reflects a far greater economic potential of agriculture among the Huns (Fig. 9).

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The word with a guttural “k” - “suqa” (sulh), and its derivative the word “sukalau” means “to plow”.

Renowned archaeologist Academician A.V.Artsihovsky, noting the importance of the found in the Bulgar city within the 14th c. cultural layer the Europe's oldest pig iron blast furnace, stated: “Before that, for two and a half thousand years iron was obtained from ores with bloomeries, without casting”. Naturally, at the time of  A.V.Artsihovsky statement, the antique Huns' settlements with Ivolginsky-type pig iron furnaces and workshops for casting tools and utensils like skillets and pans, etc., have not yet been discovered.

Judging by the finds from the  East Baikal settlements and Noinulin kurgans in the Altai, the Huns were familiar with the potter's wheel as early as before our era, and produced wonderful pottery, including container pottery. Pottery was widespread among the Huns; other cultures of that time did not have such ceramics.

The Huns were not only sociable and trading people, but unlike Greeks or Romans, and without diminishing the importance of the antique culture, it should be openly stated that Huns shared their secrets and knowledge in technology and pottery.

Apparently by no accident the tribes of Eastern Europe, who were producing pottery by hand for over thousands years, only with the arrival of the Huns began to produce ceramics on a potter's wheel. Specialists in ceramics, for example, assert that the Old Russian pottery was fired in complex pottery kilns following the Bulgar i.e. the Hunnic example.

It should also be added that the Huns, including the early Bulgars, from 2nd c. BC and up to 8th c. AD use their own script, as evidenced by numerous inscriptions on vessels of precious metals. Interestingly, the origin of the Hunnic writing is not connected with the Chinese hieroglyphs, but the ancient Aramaic script that arose sometime in the 9th c. BC; it was the base for the Greek, and later of the Arabic script, and others. This suggests that the origins of the Hunnic culture on the whole are associated with the western orientation. From the Hunnic script by a way of reforming subsequently emerged the Türkic runiform alphabet, primarily intended for the Oguz dialect of the ancient Türkic language (Figure 10).

Fig. 10. Comparative table of the Hunnic and Türkic Runiform (Oguz) alphabets

Thus, can be concluded that the mainstay of the Huns living in the East Turkestan and in the Eurasian expanse form the Baikal area to the Black Sea, has created a developed civilization of antiquity and early Middle Ages, and possessed high for its time sedentary culture.

They are More than a thousand years ahead of the Europeans they mastered not only the skills for manufacturing new weapons for the melee and range fight, but also for production of pig iron. The Huns were the first to use bricks for dwelling construction, cast their own bronze ingot money -soms; manufactured long two-handed sword weaponry, stirrups, helmets, chain mill, etc.
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Huns also used their own script, which has been preserved because starting from the 2nd c. BC and to the 8th c. AD, i.e. in the pre-Islamic period, in the Horezm in the name of the Hun rulers were minted coins, and some inscriptions were often incised on the artistically made  vessels of precious metals, on the exquisite gold earrings, and on the gold signet rings of the rulers of the early Bulgars, Avars, etc.

That the the script was fairly widespread in the early Middle Ages also testify some other findings. For example, at the beginning of the last century (1900+) a collection of a collector, a certain Zadonsky of the Kursk province, had beech planks with some unknown writing. During the Civil War (in Russia, 1917-1923) in his destructed and looted by soldiers estate, a colonel Theodore Izanbek found 45 planks and took them to Switzerland. Apparently, like the Kurbat's treasures, they were found in a burial kurgan. Unfortunately, their location is unknown. In the illustration placed upside down in a book “100 Great Mysteries of History”, are clearly seen some words of Buddhist flavor. The first line begins with a name of the Hunnic-Türkic God, “Ten_grem кürk men_gizm mon_gym-tarym sachyn_g...”, i.e. My Tengri, (you are) my reincarnation, disperse my misery and sufferings...

Apparently, the use of written language of the Huns before the runiform writing, at least among the media Kipchak dialect of Türkic language, it is much broader. For example, how do they say about a dozen rings signet-shirts kurgans of Hungary, the introduction of which leaves no doubt that, with few exceptions, like the rings of Kurbat treasures, they are decorated on the basis of the Hun alphabet (Fig. 11).²

Fig. 11. Alphabet of inscriptions on dishes from Itil basin and Urals (4th-8th cc.) and on signet rings from treasures of Bulgar King Kurbat (7th c.)

5. Kipchaks are not Polovetses

After Attila's death, as a result of internecine conflicts and the collapse of the Hun state formed new confederations: Avar in the west, Khazar in the North Caucasus (including the Itil estuary), Bulgar states and Bulgar lands between the North Pontic and Middle Itil and Kama basins. They carried the names of strong and capable of rallying the other nations Hunic tribes - Khazars, Avars, and Bulgars.

Apparently, as evidence the antique Horezmian coins, starting from antique times in the early period of the Hun power, between Eastern Turkestan, Baikal area, Horezm, and Eastern Europe emerged an inter-Hunnic Kipchak language, in the very name of which is embedded the word “Hun”³.

Consequently, the emerged later linguistic commonality of the Khazars and Bulgars based on the Kipchak (Kybchak) dialect is a reflection of the features of that ancient Türkic language.

2. Muhamadiev A., Ancient Coins of Kazan, Kazan, 2005, p. 60.
3. Möhəmmədiev Ə., Boryngy Hazar həm Bolgar-Tatar tən_gkələre, Kazan, 1987, 71b
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Naturally, “Kipchak” is not the name Polovetses, a small tribe that subsequently disappeared. The endonym of the Polovetses, judging by the Rus annals, was the ethnonym “Sarychen” (Sl. Sarochinetses).

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As a linguistic community, “Kipchak” is an umbrella term for all descendants of the Huns - Khazars, Bulgars, and includes Sarychens, who spoke in the northern Kipchak dialect, in contrast to the southern Oguz dialect, the dialects of the Ancient Türkic language. For example, talking about Kumans (Komans, Comans), William de Rubruck also mentions the Kipchak community, calling them Kipchaks, “Comans, called Kapchat”.

In the 6th c., after the Türkic empire had formed, under an influence of the Oguzes relatively rapidly has spread the common for both dialects politicized ethnonym “Türks”. Although the root of this word in the sense of “state” is also encountered standalone in the earlier times, like in the form “torugi” (state) in the Horezm early medieval coins. Of the wide spread of this word as an ethnonym testify the medieval sources. For example, the Türko-Tatar poet of the Kipchak Khanate period Saif Sarai (pronounced Saraee) correspondingly called his book: “Polistan bit-Türki” (Polistan in Türkic language).

A copyist Berke Fakih of the work “Khosrow and Shirin” of another Tatar poet Qutb, at the end of the book adds his own poem. He tells about himself, saying that he is “Mumin and Muslim”, i.e., a Muslim. Then he tells about his place of departure, which alludes that he is “by origin from Kipchak”. In that case, it is a country extending from Irtysh and Horezm to the Crimean coast, populated by the Türkic Kipchaks and called, with the light hand of the 17th c. Russian historians, by the name of the of the Mongolian khans' tent “Golden Horde”.

This name in the book of the medieval historian Rashid al-Din is “Kypchakbashi”, i.e. “Land Kipchak” (If Turkmenbashi is a head of Turkmenia, Kypchakbashi would be a head of Kypchakia). It also used a Persian translation Dasht-i Kipchak of the name of the country. The same Russian historians translated and savored it as “Kipchak steppes”. The Persian word “dasht” has several meanings: the steppe, plain, land. It appears that the spoken by the mouth of a Kipchak commander word “Kypchakbashi” (lit. Kipchak side), cited in that work, is closer to the phrase “Kipchak Land”. In comparison, for example, Persian sources used an earlier designation for the country of Khazars, Dasht-i Hazar. In Arabic, a similar to this phrase on their Khazar coins the minting place was called Ard al-Khazar, i.e. “Land of the Khazars”.

It should be noted that the Hunnic-Türkic language belongs to the agglutinative languages, i.e. the roots of the words and declination forms are so standard that they preserve the ancient forms almost unchanged. Therefore ethnonyms and other terms preserved sufficiently well the most ancient linguistic features. The self-appellation of the Huns in the form “Hunukg” with possessive affix is recorded on the antique Horezmian coins and pre-Islamic Hunno-Bulgar bowls with inscriptions of religious and personal nature (Fig. 12).

Fig. 12. Khazar coin with inscription “Hunukg Turgan”

Interestingly, the ethnonym originated not from some single tribe, but literally means “of the ten tribal unions”, i.e. a person of the “Confederation of ten  tribal unions” or a state.

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Not later than the beginning of the 8th c., under the influence of the based on the Kipchak dialect Hunnic writing system that existed since the antique period, has emerged the Türkic runiform alphabet. From the comparative analysis, it was compiled on the base of the Oguz dialect of the Ancient Türkic  language, and as opposed to the Kipchak alphabet, it did not include letter “h”nor the letter “x”. Therefore, self-designation of the Huns, i.e. “Hunuk” or “Hunhuk” later in the texts of the runiform historical monuments of the beginning of 8th c. naturally was written as “Un Uk”.

For this reason, scientists incorrectly literally translate this compound in the runiform text as tribes of “ten arrows”. At first glance, with some exceptions, the translation is true, but with that disappears a very important in this case ethnonym - the self-appellation Hun. The ancient Huns in this compound “hun uk” the first word, although with the same meaning “ten”, as has been noted above, is written in an ancient form with “h”. The second word “uk” (arrow) (sometimes also written with “h”) in the figurative sense at the ancient Huns meant “union”. Consequently, the “ten uns/ons” are not the tribes of “ten arrows”, but a “ten unions” of tribes.

The example with the self-designation of the Huns is not accidental, and it is interesting that the word “Törk” in the ancient Türkic language also means a state, and “törekg” is the same word with the possessive affix at the end, which stood to denote a mans belonging to a larger state body, established later in the 6th c. by the Türks-Oguzes. Not accidentally the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the beginning of the 10th c. in his book called even Magyars “the Türks”, perhaps because they were once a part of the said state. Another Byzantine author Th. Simokatta even earlier, in the 7th c., wrote of the Huns that “these were the Huns, whom the majority is accustomed to call Türks”.

Without the Hunnic-Türkic linguistic substratum can not be explained such ethnic terms as “Hun”, “Kuman”, “Kipchak” etc. that emerged after a collapse of the Türkic empire, and especially after an invasion of one of the Oguz tribes of Bosnyaks/Bechens into the Eastern Europe. For example, the Armenian sources, presumably dated to the 5th-6th cc., have the word “Kuman” in a more ancient form as “Hunan” (i.e., Hunan - “Land of the Huns”).

The transition of the sounds n > m > b > n ​​is common for Türkic languages, so the appearance after “Hunan” in the medieval sources the word in the form “Kunan” is not surprising. Also is not surprising that this word endured to this day as the name of a territory in the North Caucasus in the form “Kuban”.

A similar alteration of the sounds n > m > b > n is traced in the ethnonym “Kipchak” (in Hungarian Kipchak is “Qun”, i.e. Hun). This word consists of two parts: “kun” and “chak” (“Kunchak”, “Kumchak”, “Kybchak”, etc.), and literally means “Hun's man”, strongly resembling the word “Russian”, that is “Rus' Man”. The second part of the word endured in the modern Türkic languages​​, like “bala-chaga” (children), “kilenchek” (daughter-in-law, lit. newcomer), “chaga” (captured Polovets maiden ) in the “Lay of the Igor campaign”.
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