Rise And Fall Of The Huns: A Collection Of Three Hunnic Coins

They came on horseback. They just rode in one day—no one knows from where—with their battle cries and their longbows and their bloodlust. They sacked cities and towns. They pillaged. They penetrated Europe as far West as Gaul, inspiring the Great Migration. And they kept on moving. Their king, Attila, remains one of history’s most notorious figures; and their name, one of history’s most fearsome conquerors. They are the Huns. And from their arrival in the 370s AD to their departure a hundred years later, they were the fiercest and most ferocious warriors on earth.

Little is definitively known about their origin. Were they Mongols? Scythians? Magyars? No one can say for sure. The Huns were nomads. Little archeological evidence exists of them. There are few examples of Hunnic art. From the skulls found at Hunnic burial sites, we know that they practiced cranial deformation, elongating the pliable heads of their infants. They were expert horsemen and excellent bowmen. The Romans found them ugly and uncouth.

After the death of Attila, the Huns splintered. The Kidarites, or Red Huns, moved into Bactria. The Alxon took the Punjab and other parts of India. After their defeat in the Second Hunnic War, the Huns retreated to Kashmir, where their last king, Toramana, established his base of operations. This box contains coins of the Kidarites, the Alxon, and Toramana of Kashmir