- Vizigót csat magyar mondatokkal -
Introduction
I would like to thank Csilla Illés Góczánné for drawing my attention to a characteristic Hun-type (polychrome style) Visigothic buckle, which was published on the internet by Simonetta Gatto from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (Figure 1). According to the attached description: “This 6th-century belt buckle was worn by a Visigothic elite woman living on the Iberian Peninsula, perhaps the wife of a regional ruler. Its traditional form is characterized by a stunning geometric design composed of garnet, green glass, and mother-of-pearl inlays. The Visigoths inherited their love for red stones from their Gothic ancestors living on the Black Sea, while they learned the cloisonné technique from their Byzantine neighbors on the Lower Danube. By the time they settled in Spain, Visigothic jewelers combined these two traditions to create extraordinary pieces that, like this buckle, balance their migratory heritage with Mediterranean luxury.”
Figure 1. The reading of the main signs on the arc, tongue, and body of the Visigothic buckle (Cleveland Museum of Art): Lyukó atya Föld ég szár (in modern Hungarian: Lyukó atya a Föld és az ég ura "Father Lyukó is the sire of the Earth and the sky")
On the right edge of Figure 1, from bottom to top, the signs of the Szekely script for "ly" (Lyukó), "ty" (atya "father"), "f" (Föld "Earth"), "o/ó" (Óg "sky god"), and "sz" (szár "plant stem, sire") can be seen.
To Simonetta Gatto's description above, it must be added that at this time, Huns lived along the Lower Danube, and prior to them, the Sarmatians, who had already intermingled with the Huns on the steppe. They were the "Byzantines" from whom the Visigoths learned the creation of similar jewelry, which testifies to a refined taste and a highly developed primordial religious theory (1). As well as—based on the readings below—the Hungarian script, language, and the intelligent use of signs resulting in pictorial texts. The inlays used on the jewelry are red, white, and green, just like the Hungarian state coat of arms and flag. Since these pieces of jewelry easily survive a few centuries, perhaps it is also worth considering whether this buckle was made by Hungarian-speaking Huns?
The use of signs on the Visigothic buckle
Every sign on the buckle can be clearly identified with the symbols of the mostly alphabetic Szekely script and the Hungarian hieroglyphic script (Figure 10), which represents its predecessor and utilizes logograms with religious connections. However, not only the individual signs, but also the readable representational conventions using them are identical. It was indeed a common practice for users of the Hungarian hieroglyphic script to form images important to the primordial religion out of the hieroglyphs for the sake of religious purposes. We see such examples on this Visigothic buckle as well.
The arc of the Visigothic buckle is the Óg (ég) "sky", its tongue is the szár "plant stem, sire", and its body is the Föld "Earth" hieroglyph. Together, they map out the structure of the world. For instance, the Föld sign is a map of Eden. Inside the Föld sign, additional symbols were placed, including the logograms for atya "father" and Lyukó. With the listed signs, they display their concepts of the earthly world and the sky above it, supported by the world pillar. Parallel to this is the reading of the signs in modern Hungarian: Lyukó atya a Föld és az ég ura "Father Lyukó is the sire of the Earth and the sky". The smaller hieroglyphs forming the individual details record further sentences of primordial religious significance (Figures 2-9).
The ligatures of the Visigothic buckle
The ligatures of the buckle, built up from several logograms, generally form a natural image. This is a characteristic feature of the Hungarian hieroglyphic script, which this Visigothic script relic faithfully follows.
Figure 2. The two larger signs (circular and triangular) of the sign montage evoke the sun god enthroned on the mountain, its reading from top to bottom: Lyukó sar (in modern Hungarian: Lyukó úr "Sire Lyukó"), on the right edge of the figure the signs "ly" (Lyukó) and "s" (sar "corner, sire") of the Szekely script are visible
Figure 3. The reading of the three sections of the rhombus-shaped sign montage from one oblique red hieroglyph to the other: Ragyogj! Lyukó jó dana. Ragyogtál. (in modern Hungarian: Ragyogj! Lyukó folyóisten. Ragyogtál. "Shine! Lyukó river god. You have shone.")
The text of Figure 3 is the outline of a script for a deity-evoking ritual. On its right edge, from top to bottom, the Szekely script signs for "ly" (Lyukó), "r" (ragyogj, ragyogtál "shine, you have shone"), "j" (jó "river"), and "d" (Dana "god") are visible. Similar ritual scripts — in accordance with the phases of the deity-evoking ceremony — are divided into three parts. In the first, they call upon the Deity, and in the last, they bid farewell to Him — and for both, the oblique line-shaped ragyogj, ragyogtál logogram is utilized. The middle section documents the appearance of the Deity, the epiphany. Therefore, at the top of the middle sign association is the Lyukó hieroglyph, the sign of the sun god. Beneath it is a swastika reading Jó Dana (in modern Hungarian "jóisten" [good god], or "folyóisten" [river god]), which depicts the holy rivers of Eden originating from the sun god.
We know several parallels to similar ritual scripts. A deity-evoking ritual manual outline also occurs on the Holy Crown, made around 531 for the Sabir Huns (i.e., the Hungarians).
Figure 4. From bottom to top: Nagy sar (in modern Hungarian: nagyúr "great sire"), on the right edge of the figure, from bottom to top, the Szekely script signs "n" (nagy "great") and "s" (sar "corner, sire") are visible
Figure 5. From bottom to top: Lyukó sar (in modern Hungarian: Lyukó úr "sire Lyukó"), on the right edge of the figure, from bottom to top, the Szekely script signs "ly" (Lyukó "sun god") and "s" (sar "corner, sire") can be seen
Figure 6. The space between the four Jó "river" signs forms the cross-shaped dana "god" hieroglyph in the center, the reading: Jó dana (in modern Hungarian: Folyóisten "River god", or Isteni folyó "Divine river"), on the right edge of the figure, from bottom to top, the Szekely script signs "j" (jó "river") and "d" (Dana "god") are visible
Figure 7. The reading of the structure of the buckle body: Lyukó atya földje "The land of Father Lyukó", on the right edge of the figure, from bottom to top, the Szekely script signs "f" (Föld), "ty" (atya) and "ly" (Lyukó "sun god") are visible
Figure 7 shows the skeleton of the sign composition of the Visigothic buckle body, which is formed by the Föld "Earth" hieroglyph. Together with the supplementary signs, its reading is Lyukó atya Földje "The land of Father Lyukó". This is a simplified map of Eden. In the center of the sign montage is one of the symbols of the sun god, the Lyukó hieroglyph. In nature, this place corresponds to Ararat, on the peak of which our ancestors may have imagined the dwelling of God. From the foot of the mountain start the four holy rivers, the names of which are listed in the Old Testament: Gihon, Pison, Tigris, Euphrates. Among them, the latter two can still be identified today. Regarding the remaining Gihon and Pison, several explanations are known; it is possible that these are the rivers known today as the Halys and the Araxes. The sign montage indicates the rivers with a series of hieroglyphs corresponding to the Szekely script sign "ü" (ügy "river").
A similar symbolism can be observed on the top view of the Holy Crown, which forms a cross enclosed in a circle. Indeed, the crossbands of the crown are conspicuously sprinkled with curly-shaped filigrees reading jó "river". We experience the same on a 2300-year-old Hun crown preserved in South China. This indicates that the top view of the Holy Crown may be a Hun tradition. The top view of these crowns is likewise the map of Eden with the four holy rivers, likewise a Föld hieroglyph, just like the Visigothic buckle body (only the Goths marked the river with another Hungarian hieroglyph).
Figure 8/a. The buckle tongue is a "tree growing from a sign" representational convention, its reading is (approx.): Föld szár (in modern Hungarian: a Föld ura "the sire of the Earth")
The "tree growing from a sign" representational convention also appears on a Merovingian/Hun badge discovered in Childeric's grave (Figure 8/b). Its earliest occurrence is known from Göbekli Tepe and a Harappan vessel.
Figure 8/b. The double cross representing the world tree standing on the Föld hieroglyph (world model) of the Childeric treasure reflecting Hun influence (center), the hieroglyphs of the find (left) and the Szekely runic signs corresponding to the hieroglyphs (right), the reading of the find: Jó Egy földje, in modern Hungarian: Jóságos Egy (isten) földje [The land of the Gracious One (God)], or A folyó(val azonos) Egy (isten) földje [The land of the One (God) (identical with the) river]
Figure 9. "Tree supporting the sky" representational convention, its reading: Óg szár (in modern Hungarian: az Ég ura [the lord of the Sky])
In the Chinese primordial religion, the "Sire of Heaven" (Tianhuang Dadi) is one of the highest-ranking celestial deities, who rules over the stars, the sky, and the weather. The title "Sire of Heaven" (in original Chinese characters: 天皇, in pinyin transliteration: Tiānhuáng) was borne in history by the following:
- The official title of the Japanese Emperor to this day is the term "Sire of Heaven" (in Japanese: Tenno), adopted from Chinese culture.
- Although Chinese emperors fundamentally used the title "Son of Heaven" (Tianzi), during the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century, Emperor Gaozong officially assumed the title "Sire of Heaven" (Tianhuang).
It is obvious that the identity of the Chinese and Visigothic "sire of the sky" usage is thanks to the Huns, who during the Hun Xia Dynasty may have passed on their Stone Age hieroglyphs originating from the territory of Eden and its surroundings to the Chinese as well. This former cultural identity is proven by the 50 Szekely-identical signs that can be detected in Chinese writing.
The neolithic Chinese occurrence and steppe inheritance of the expression ég szár "sire of the sky" is attested by several instances. In these, although it is not Óg but the ég logogram that is used, apart from this, the meaning, sign usage, and phonetic form of the expression are identical or related.
The sign montage shown in Figure 9 is a kind of realization of the tree supporting the sky representational convention. The Óg hieroglyph (the equivalent of the Szekely script sign "o/ó") depicts the vault of the sky. We have several reasons to read the Visigothic equivalent of the Szekely script letter "o/ó" as ég [sky].
- On one hand, the related Hittite (Luwian) hieroglyphic writing system did not differentiate between the "o/ó" and "e/é" sounds, but marked them with the same sign. And it is dynamic to assume that this once perhaps common custom was somehow inherited in this name.
- On the other hand, on the Lyukaskő of Kács, the Óg and the ég hieroglyphs are carved into the rock as equivalents of each other.
- On the third hand, the arc of the Óg logogram depicts the vault of the sky. We know this because the sky hieroglyph of the Hittite (Luwian) hieroglyphic script has precisely this shape.
The arc and tongue of Hun and Avar buckles generally represent the same symbolism, ultimately of Stone Age origin: the arc of the buckle symbolizes the vault of the sky, while its tongue symbolizes the world tree. From this, one can also infer the Hun origin of the sign usage and message of this Visigothic buckle.
The logograms of the Visigothic buckle
Every hieroglyph of the buckle can be correlated with the signs of the Szekely script of Hun origin. However, the Visigothic signs are logograms (word-signs), whereas the Szekely signs are mostly letters denoting only a single sound. This is bridged by the acrophony reconstruction carried out in the 90s, when through research organized by the Institute for the History of Script, we identified 40 logograms of the Hungarian hieroglyphic script.
Figure 10. There is complete agreement between the logograms of the Visigothic buckle and the runic letters of the Szekely script (the nagy [great] and the Óg hieroglyphs turned vertical in the Szekely runic script because horizontal signs cannot be carved into wooden sticks with a pocketknife)
Notes
(1) In order to assess what the Visigoths might have learned from the Huns, it is worth looking around the period.
The Visigoths were a late antique and early medieval Germanic ethnic group who played a key role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the shaping of the face of medieval Europe. Their name originates from the Latin word Visigothi, the meaning of which is "good" or "worthy". The Gothic people split into two major branches at the end of the 3rd century: the Eastern Goths (Ostrogoths) and the Western Goths (Visigoths). Their first settlement areas were in the territory of present-day Romania and the Carpathian Basin (archeologically, the Marosszentanna culture can be linked to them). Here, the remnants of the Dacian culture using the Hungarian hieroglyphic script, the Sarmatian culture that had previously mixed with the Huns, and then the Hun culture itself could have influenced them. At the end of the 4th century, due to the attack of the Huns advancing from the east, they were forced to flee, and crossed the border of the Roman Empire with permission.
Due to the poor treatment by the Romans, however, they rebelled and defeated the Roman army at Adrianople in 378. Under the leadership of King Alaric, they captured Rome in 410.
After the Visigoths sacked Rome under the leadership of Alaric I in 410, the Goths and the Huns shared a common interest in weakening Roman power or taking advantage of the weakness of Roman emperors as mercenaries. Alaric's successor, Athaulf (Adolfus), recognized that the cavalry military strength of the Huns was of decisive importance. During the Visigoths' march toward Gaul and Hispania, the Hun tribes did not attack them; in fact, certain Hun groups joined the Gothic king as mercenaries. The most important Roman general of the era, Flavius Aetius, who lived as a Hun hostage in his youth among the nomads, maintained excellent relations with the Hun elite (thus with Attila's predecessors, Rugila and Octar). Aetius repeatedly employed Hun mercenaries to force political agreements with the Visigoths settling in Gaul. This diplomatic triangle (the balancing of Romans–Huns–Visigoths) ensured for decades that Hun and Gothic leaders negotiated and traded peacefully with each other.
The mutual influence during the roughly 20-30 years of relative peace and alliance left a deep mark on the culture of the Gothic people, which is also confirmed by archeological finds. The Visigothic nobility adopted Hun fashion; the attire of Hun lords became a status symbol in their circles. Gothic warriors wore the characteristic cloisonné jewelry, belt buckles, and horse harnesses of the Huns, decorated with colorful semi-precious stones (garnet, almandine). Their military culture also changed. The Visigoths, who originally practiced heavy infantry and traditional shield-wall tactics, adopted during this period the horse archery tactics and light cavalry maneuvers learned from the Huns, which later became the military foundation of their kingdom in Spain.
The peaceful era was brought to an end by Attila's rise to power (434). Attila built a centralized world empire and wanted to integrate the Visigoths into it as well. The Visigoths refused this and chose instead to form an alliance with the Western Roman Empire, which ultimately led to the bloody clash on the Catalaunian Plains.
In the Battle of Catalaunian Plains (451 AD), the Visigoths fought throughout on the side of the Roman general Flavius Aetius, and they took the lion's share of the struggle upon themselves. During the battle, the king of the Visigoths, Theodoric, also fell. After the king's death, the Visigoths charged furiously, and under the leadership of his son, Thorismund, pushed back Attila's Huns, who were forced to retreat into their own wagon fort. The siege of the wagon fort, however, did not take place: according to one possible explanation, Aetius feared that if the Huns were completely destroyed, the Visigoths would become too powerful and threaten the Western Roman Empire. Striving to maintain the geopolitical balance, Aetius convinced the new Visigothic king, Thorismund, to urgently return to his capital, Toulouse, lest his brothers seize power in his absence. Thorismund listened to the advice, and the Visigothic army marched home even before the final clash could take place. This withdrawal allowed Attila—left alone on the battlefield—to also depart from there after some waiting.
The Huns respected, and indeed partly followed, Christianity.
- They had Christian bishoprics in the oases of Merv, Herat, and Gurgan, and maintained high-level connections with Syrian church leaders as early as the 400s and 500s.
- One of the most important internal advisors, diplomats, and personal secretaries (notarius) of the Hun king Attila was a Christian aristocrat named Flavius Orestes. Orestes was born in the province of Pannonia—where Sarmatians and Huns lived in large numbers—to a wealthy Roman family. When the Western Roman Empire was forced to cede Pannonia to the Huns, Orestes decided not to flee but to offer his services to the Hun ruler. Since he spoke Latin and Greek excellently and knew Roman court etiquette and law, he became an indispensable diplomat for Attila. He led Attila's important embassies to Constantinople and handled the king's official correspondence as well. The famous Byzantine historian Priscus of Panium, who personally visited Attila's court, mentions Orestes by name. After the death of Attila in 453 and the disintegration of the Hun Empire, Orestes returned to Roman politics, where he became a military commander-in-chief (magister militum). He rose so high that in 475, he placed his own minor son, Romulus Augustulus, on the Western Roman throne. With this, the son of the former Hun secretary became the very last Western Roman emperor in history, who was then deprived of power a year later by the chieftain Odoacer. The figure of Orestes is perfect proof that Attila's court was not an isolated, primitive nomadic camp, but a power center where educated Christian Romans could pursue serious careers. From this Hun environment, the Visigoths could take with them the respect for Christianity.
It characterizes the era that Odoacer, who deposed the last Roman emperor connected to the Hun court (the son of Orestes, Romulus Augustulus) from his throne, also spent his childhood and youth directly in the Hun camps and Attila's court. Here, he mastered the military strategy and diplomacy of the era firsthand. Odoacer's father, Edeko ("One Hun", or "Sweet Hun"), was one of the most trusted generals, diplomats, and leaders of the bodyguard of the Hun king Attila.
Edeko is registered as a Germanic, although no data pointing to his Germanic origin has survived. Relying on the contemporary descriptions of Priscus of Panium—who met him personally—Edeko is mentioned among the "most excellent of the Huns" as the commander of Attila's bodyguard and his trusted chief man. There is also a hypothesis according to which Edeko may have been directly the son of the Hun king Rugila. Since the elite of the era frequently married members of other peoples for political reasons, mixed origin was completely common. It is not excluded that Edeko possessed different (Hun and non-Hun) roots on both his maternal and paternal sides. Edeko belonged to the supreme leadership of the Hun Empire and was a member of Attila's innermost circle. Regarding his origin—without any proof, ignoring the clear testimony of the name Edeko ("Egyhun" [One-Hun], or "Édeshun" [Sweet-Hun])—today's historical science identifies him rather as a Germanic (Scirian) leader. Meanwhile, the possibility of a Hun origin is a recurring subject of debate, since the Germanic classification of the Scirians is not supported by any data either. Procopius, for instance, mentions the Scirians in one place in the same group as the non-Germanic Alans.
According to Attila Sántha, textual parallels and connections can be demonstrated between Jordanes' Scirian history and Simon de Kéza's Szekely chronicle (the story of the Huns remaining behind with Prince Csaba). Consequently, the history and migration of the Scirians may actually cover the history of the post-Hun population that remained in the Carpathian Basin (thus the ancestors of the Szekelys), who were recorded in Western sources as Scirians. Based on Attila Sántha's data and theory, therefore, Edeko was not a Germanic vassal but a native Hun leader, and the Scirians themselves formed part of the Hun population.
Edeko occupied such a high position in the Hun court that in 449, he led the Hun embassy to Constantinople, as a member of which the Eastern Romans unsuccessfully attempted to bribe him to assassinate Attila. The sons of the two former Hun court chief men later fought each other for power in Italy, which ultimately led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.
This fall simultaneously proved the moral superiority of the Huns compared to European customs of the time (previously, Attila had given an example of this by sparing Rome). Odoacer indeed treated Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor, surprisingly gently: he did not have him executed but sent him into retirement. In 476, after Odoacer deprived the last Western Roman emperor of his throne, he spared the life of the boy, who was only an adolescent. He provided him with an annual gold allowance of 6000 solidi (which counted as a huge fortune) and exiled him with his family to the region of Campania, to the Lucullanum castle (in the territory of present-day Naples). This was not at all customary at that time. Political shifts of power in 5th-century Europe and the Roman Empire most frequently ended in brutal violence, beheadings, blindings, or mutilations. Odoacer himself was cut in two with a sword by the Eastern Gothic king, Theodoric the Great, at a peace-seeking banquet barely two decades later (in 493). Usurpers and fallen emperors were murdered almost without exception so they could not return to take revenge or incite a new civil war. For example, the Roman emperor Caracalla had his own brother, the 22-year-old Geta, murdered in their mother's arms. Therefore, the answer of Onogesius, Attila's favorite general, to a foreign offer when he was invited west to be a soldier, is perfectly understandable: "I would rather be Etele's servant at home than a wealthy man abroad".
Figure 11. The statue of Onogesius in the yard of the Cserépmadár accommodation and Csinyálóház in Velemér
Marching further from Italy, the Visigoths founded the first recognized barbarian state operating within the borders of the empire in the southern part of Gaul (Aquitaine), with Toulouse as its center. From here, however, the Franks expelled them in 507 (in the Battle of Vouillé). After the loss of Gaul, they transferred the center of their power to the Iberian Peninsula, where Toledo became their capital. Here, they established a highly powerful state with an advanced legal system, where the culture of the Hun-Germanic and the local Romanized Hispanic population intermingled. The Visigothic Kingdom was brought to an end by the Arab (Moorish) conquest of 711, which swept away the Gothic state organization on the peninsula.
The Visigoths were the first Germanic people to adopt Christianity (initially its Arian direction, and later, in 589, they converted to the Catholic faith). They introduced that form of medieval state organization according to which the king receives his power from God. According to some opinions, the foundations of the Spanish legal system were also laid down by their code of laws (the Lex Visigothorum).
The divine origin of royal power is a characteristic steppe tradition. According to Scythian mythology, the kingship was won by the one who could catch the emblems falling from the sky. According to the story immortalized by Herodotus, three sons were born to the first (heavenly-descended) king of the Scythians, Targitaos: Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and the youngest, Kolaxais. According to Herodotus' description, while the brothers lived on their land, four gold objects (emblems) fell to the earth from the high sky:
- a plow (tilling, agriculture, economy)
- a yoke (the mastery of animals and nature)
- a battle-axe / focos (defense, military power)
- a cup / sacrificial bowl (religion, sacredness, toast).
The heavenly objects symbolized the pillars of governance and social order. The brothers tried to pick them up in turn: when the eldest brother approached, the gold burst into flames, so he had to step back. When the middle brother tried to grasp it, the gold burned with fire again. When the youngest brother, Kolaxais, stepped there, the fire went out, and the gold objects allowed themselves to be raised and taken home. The two older brothers understood the heavenly sign from this: they voluntarily bowed their heads before the youngest and handed the entire kingdom over to him. From him descended the ruling tribe of the Scythians, the lineage of the Royal Scythians.
The concept of charisma received from heaven and divine election firmly existed on the steppe long before the Huns and the Hungarians, and indeed this was professed even by the Sumerians, classified among the Uralic peoples by Simo Parpola. The person of the ruler was determined not by physical strength or the right of primogeniture, but by whom the transcendent sphere designated through the heavenly signs.
The official title of the Hun rulers (chanyus) according to Chinese chronicles ran as follows: “The great chanyu, born by Heaven and Earth, established on the throne by the Sun and Moon.”
During its rise, the Merovingian house drew deeply from Hun culture. The excavation in 1653 of the grave of the Frankish king Childeric I (Clovis' father) provided astonishing proof: the Frankish ruler was buried with classic Hun-style, garnet-inlaid gold buckles, a Hun-type sword, and 300 gold bees (or frogs/fleur-de-lis precursors).
According to French historical tradition, the ruler of the Merovingian dynasty, Clovis I, adopted Christianity in 496 (or 498). According to the legend, during his baptism, the holy oil was not brought to the Bishop of Reims, Saint Remigius, in time because of the crowd. At that moment, a snow-white dove (the symbol of the Holy Spirit) descended from the open sky with a tiny vial in its beak, the Holy Ampulla. Clovis was anointed with the oil of heavenly origin found in this, and from then on, French kings professed for centuries that their power originated directly from Heaven, from God.
The legend of the Holy Ampulla (496/498) is about this holy oil. When Clovis I was baptized, a dove descended from the sky with the Holy Ampulla in its beak, containing the heavenly oil for the anointing of the king. In this 5th-century story, the lily did not yet feature.
According to the legend of the lily, an angel (or a hermit) handed Clovis a shield decorated with lilies or the lily itself, so that he would replace his former pagan coat of arms with the flower of heavenly purity. Although there was no lily pattern on the original, ancient glass vial, French kings in the 12th - 13th centuries made the lily their official royal coat of arms (this is the famous fleur-de-lis). When the Holy Ampulla was placed into a portable, gem-studded gold reliquary (container) in the Middle Ages, that container was already richly decorated with royal lilies (with the fleur de lis symbol).
Similar processes took place in the other states of Europe, for instance on the British Isles as well, where Huns came to the British throne. Accordingly, the sign usage of an object of the Staffordshire Hoard testifies to Hun influence, where the parallel of the Hungarian tulip and the French fleur-de-lis was left to us (Figure 12).
Figure 12. On the sword pommel of the Staffordshire Hoard, hidden between 650 and 675 AD, a sentence with a tulip reading Nagyon nagy Dana isten [Very great God Dana] can be read (the nagyon nagy ... word sequence appears in the lower circumscription)
This is interesting because the lily (and its Hungarian equivalent, the tulip) can be read with the help of the Hungarian hieroglyphic script in the form of Isten (ős "ancestor" + ten), which perfectly corresponds to the steppe tradition professed about the divine origin of kingship, and also to the French legend. This is why the tulip features on the Hungarian coronation mantle as well. The medieval equipping of the Holy Ampulla with a lily could have been based on the steppe sign usage that was still vividly alive then. The existence of this western sign usage of steppe origin is also proven by the finds discovered in the grave of the Merovingian Childeric. The lily representations of the Merovingian and Anjou eras are Western survivals of the ancient Hun-Avar-Hungarian ligatures (the Isten logogram), which were intended to herald the heavenly, sacred nature of royal power.
Based on data from historical science, archeology, comparative mythology, and the history of script, it is obvious that both the Merovingians and the Visigoths (and other Germanic peoples) intensively adopted and integrated steppe-Hun traditions in the fields of cultural representation and power symbolism. The essence of the process was that during the period of Hun dominance in the 4th – 5th centuries, the nomadic steppe horse culture represented the highest military and political prestige in Europe. Following Hun models served to increase the own legitimacy and strength of the Germanic elite.
The Romans settled Sarmatian groups (and other barbarian peoples, such as Germanics) en masse into the territory of Pannonia between the 2nd and 5th centuries. After they defeated them or formed an alliance with them, they gave them land in Transdanubia in the status of so-called laeti or dediticii (subjugated, then settled). In return, Sarmatian men had to perform military service, meaning they themselves protected the line of the limes against other arriving tribes. The Sarmatians had previously mixed with the Huns on the steppe, meaning that a Hun influence could prevail in Transdanubia during the Roman era.
Based on the latest (2022–2026) international archeogenetic research of the University of Szeged and the Institute for Hungarian Studies—including full genome analyses of the Sarmatian and Hun period population of the Carpathian Basin—the Sarmatians and the Huns are connected by a genetic relationship. During the examination of Y-chromosomes inherited on the paternal (male) line, geneticists demonstrated that a very strong paternal line overlap and continuity existed between the Sarmatians and the Huns in the Carpathian Basin. The R1a-Z93 (and its subclades, e.g., Z2124) is the most important common link. This haplogroup is originally linked to Bronze Age steppe populations (Sintashta, Andronovo), thus it was the dominant paternal line of Iron Age Scythians and Sarmatians. When the Asian Huns (Xiongnu) from Mongolia started moving westward, along the way (still in Asia), they absorbed and assimilated Sarmatian-Scythian groups en masse. Due to this, about 80% of the genome of the European Hun elite arriving in the Carpathian Basin belonged to the R1a-Z93 and Q haplogroups. (This same R1a-Z2124 branch appears later among the Avars and in the conquering Hungarian leading lineages, including the House of Árpád). The Q-M242 (and its subclades) represents a characteristically Inner Asian haplogroup of Hun-Turkic origin, yet it had already popped up in graves of the late Sarmatian period—even before the official military appearance of the Huns at the end of the 4th century. This proves that the two peoples had already intermingled on the male line during the steppe migration, well before their arrival in Europe.
Extending the above research, the researchers of SZTE mapped 156 genomes of the Carpathian Basin Sarmatian period between the 1st and 5th centuries in an independent project at the end of 2024 and in 2025. This article quantified the mix pattern of the Sarmatians with the Ural region and the Huns. The title of the study: A Study of the Sarmatian-Period Population in the Carpathian Basin
To this, it must be added that a nation is determined not only by its always complex genetics, but also by its similarly multi-branched culture (language, worldview, religion, sign usage, economic, military conditions, etc.). Genetic connections are only good for ensuring that the Hun cultural influence cannot be denied among the Sarmatians either. Connected with this indeed is the common sign and language usage that primarily interests us due to the topic of the present article. Which, by the way, we can establish as a fact based on the texts written with the Hungarian hieroglyphic script present on both Hun and Sarmatian finds.
While unconfirmed by absolute proof, theories suggest Saint Martin's father in Savaria may have had Sarmatian-Hun roots, and 12th–13th-century Northern French hagiography (such as Historia septem sanctorum dormientium) explicitly labels Saint Martin as a Hun/Hungarian prince of noble lineage („Saint Martin fust de mont noble ligniee...”), though contemporary biographies by Sulpicius Severus omit this.
The Visigoths interacted closely with the Huns—who used Hungarian hieroglyphs—leading the Visigothic elite to adopt Hun symbols, jewelry styles like cloisonné with almandine and garnet (e.g., Guarrazar treasures), military tactics, and concepts of divine royal authority. These cultural borrowings account for the presence of Hungarian hieroglyphic sentences on Visigothic artifacts such as the buckle.
Literature
Manfred Bundschuh: Részlet Simo Parpola: Az asszír életfa: A zsidó monoteizmus és a görög filozófia eredetének nyomában című művéből (academia.edu)
MKI (2022): Teljes genom vizsgálatokkal derítettünk fényt a hunok, avarok és honfoglaló magyarok származására, 2022. május 30.
MKI (2025): Az „elfeledett népek” eredetének és genetikai felépítésének feltárása: A szarmata kori népesség vizsgálata a Kárpát-medencében
Sántha Attila (2016): Jordanes szkír-története, mint Kézai székely-történetének forrása, A Magyarok IX. Világkongresszusa
Simo Parpola (2010): Sumerian: A Uralic Language (I), in L. Kogan et al. (eds.), Language in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 53 e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Vol. I, Pt. 2 (Babel und Bibel 4/2, Winona Lake, Indiana): 181–210
Simo Parpola (2016): Etymological Dictionary of the Sumerian Language, Winona Lake, Indiana: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Pp. xliv + 426; xxviii + 436.
Simonetta Gatto (2026): 6th-century Visigothic belt buckle with garnet, glass, and mother-of-pearl inlays (fb poszt)
