Székely
script of the Huns
According to chronicles and traditions, the Székelys
arrived in the
After the first publication of these Hunnish
inscriptions (Varga/1996) I received a Hunnish bronze fibula from Fekete
András. Its source is not known exactly but presumably it was somewhere in
At the bottom of the fibula there are four Székely
runes “s” (sarok = corner; a symbol for mountain), representing the mountain of
mountains, the largest mountain. The Huns usually depicted the North Pole
(which was the religiously respected and personified rotation axis of the
Earth) this way. Most often there are only three hills drawn on similar Hunnish
representations; they are the archetypes of the triple hill of the Hungarian
coat of arms.
At the top there are three readable runes. Above and
below them two horizontal lines represent the edges of an imaginary
tally-stick, or perhaps just serve to separate the runes.
It cannot be considered Turkish, as the character in
the middle does not exist in Turkish script. On the other hand, all three
characters can be found among German runic characters. The first two characters
stand for the sounds “i” and “ng” in the early or common runic script of
All three characters can be found in the Greek
alphabet as well. According to Priscos, the Huns were familiar with the Greek
language. It could follow from this that the Huns, like the Parthians, knew and
used Greek script. It is also supported by some presumably Hunnish inscriptions
written with Greek letters. In Greek the short inscription on the fibula would
read iak, whose meaning, however,
eludes me.
There is another reason for not reading it as a Greek
inscription. Character “us” on the relics introduced earlier (Fig. 22) is
unknown in Greek (though the shape of “ph” is similar). Therefore, we should
suppose that the Huns had a strictly religious script which is identical with
the ancestor of Székely script (which contains the character “us”) and another
script of Greek letters.
Although this possibility cannot be ruled out, one
meaningless word is not a firm basis for supposing that the inscription on the
fibula is another (Greek-based) Hunnish script. The Huns applied Greek script
mainly in diplomacy, and only secondarily on jewelry. The only example where
Greek script was used on a Hunnish jewel is the Holy Crown, but it is a jewel
of “diplomatic significance.”
Reading the letters on the fibula from right to left
with the help of the Székely alphabet, they had no meaning either. As it is not
a tally-stick, in which case there would be a good reason to read from right to
left, I have tried to read the characters from left to right as for example on
the Avar-Hunnish salt-cellar of Sopronkõhida.
The first character from the left is the Székely rune
“sz” (Fig. 26). Compared to the vertical orientation used today, this Hunnish
character was engraved into the bronze with a slight left tilt. It is similar
to the “sz” runes in the character sets of Kapossi Sámuel (around 1700), Bél
Mátyás (1718), and Oertelius (before 1746), and in the Székely alphabet in the
register of births of the
Székely “sz” is identical with Turkish “sz,” while the
“sz” character in some scripts of
These variants can be interpreted with the help of
mythology. Earlier we derived the vertical form of Székely “sz” from the
representation of the tree supporting the sky, and its phonetic form from the
words “szár/szál” (stem, thread) (Varga/1993/72).
In Finno-Ugrian mythology, this sky-high tree is
identified as the Milky Way and can be represented as a river by a wave or a
scroll (the symbol of a crest rolling up to the sky). That is, these character
variants are controversial only if they are regarded as letters; they
unanimously refer to the Milky Way when regarded as hieroglyphs.
That is why elsewhere the Székelys have used the
hooked form of Oertilius’s “sz” character to mark “j” (jó “folyó” = good river)
(cf. Figs. 4, 11, 15, 17, 26, 36).
What is important for us from all the above is that the
slightly left-slanted “sz” is not a special curiosity, but belongs to the
tradition of the characters representing the Milky Way.
Fig. 26 The parallels of the first (left) character on
the Hunnish fibula (above), and the representation of the Milky Way on a 15th
c. silver cup with wave-formed runes (Székely “ak” or Turkish “a”) (adopted
from Fehér/1995; below)
Fig. 27 The parallels of the second (middle) character
on the Hunnish fibula
Fig. 28 The parallels of the third (right) character
on the Hunnish fibula
The middle character on the fibula (Fig. 27) is identical
with the Székely rune “a” (Anat, anya = Anat, mother) and has no exact
equivalent in the Turkish alphabet.[3]
According to Szekeres István's interpretation, this Székely character can be
related to the Sumerian ideograph “woman,” the Chinese ideograph “(married)
woman, mother,” the Old-Turkish character “k” (kadin = woman), and the mirror image of the German character “w” (weib = woman) (Szekeres/1993/87). Greek
“a” (alpha) and the character “a” in some scripts of
The origin of the third (right) Hunnish character,
which can be described as a two-tooth comb, is more difficult to define, though
the same “ö/õ” character can be found in the inscription of Csíkszentmárton
(Fig. 28), and its more cursive forms in the characters used by Bél Mátyás (1718),
Szentkirályi Sámuel (1730), and the Nagybánya Calvinist Church (1820). However,
there are 5-6 totally different characters known in Székely inscriptions which
can all represent the sound “ö/ü.” The “ö” character in Kajoni's alphabet
represents the sound “ü” in Marsigli's runic calendar and in the Nikolsburg
alphabet.
These fit the fact that the “ö/õ” sound itself
developed at a relatively late time in the Hungarian language. Even a few centuries
ago, for example the name of Körmend was written as Kürmend in Latin-Hungarian
scripts. It can hardly be certain, therefore, that this rune represented the
sound “ö” in Hunnish times.
In the case of the third character, formal parallels
in other scripts must be considered to define its phonetic form and character
name. These parallels are the Turkish “k” of Orchon, the German “b” rune, the
Chinese “fou” (big mound, earthen hill), Phoenician “´” (alef =ox) and the Latin character “k” (Fig. 28).
The Turkish “k” of Orchon which was used before or
after “ö/ü” (that is the character for the “ök,” “ük,” “kö,” “kü” syllabic
groups) is similar to a two-teeth comb. This syllabic group is represented in
the Turkish script of Yenisey by two hills standing on their sides, and this
more graphic variation can contribute to the interpretation of the above
Hunnish characters. In Székely script, the two hills standing on their sides
represent “m” (magas = high). As a Hungarian pictograph, the range of hills -
sometimes standing on their sides - is a symbol for the road leading to Heaven,
the
To sum it up, the third character on the fibula refers
to hills, mountains, hills forming stairs, a road leading upwards.
The northern variant (Swedish, Norwegian) of German
runic script also contains a character with a two-tooth comb form, character
“p/b/mb” (bjarkan). Its equivalent sign in the Danish and early (common)
character sets also represents two mountains standing on their sides.
One of the variants of Chinese fou “large mountain,
primary mountain” (sign 1108/b of Karlgren) represents three hills on their
sides, while variant 1108/c has a three-tooth comb form (Fig. 28).
Considering the above phonetic forms, character names
and pictures, the name of the pictorial sign representing personified mountains
stood on their sides could be kõ
(stone). The Finnish god-name Ukko (“ük kõ” -ancient stone) can also be related
to this hieroglyph. Stone is a god-symbol; this genetic relationship is the
reason for the similarity between the English word stone and the Hungarian word isten
(god).
The linear variant, the two-tooth comb, however could
have also been interpreted as the spinal column and the two horns of an ox
(based on the reasoning that Baál, the mountain god appointed a bull to be his
heir). That is why we could just as well choose the sign name ökör (ox =cf. Turkish öküz) for linear sign variants, if the
word ökör has developed from the
compounds “ük úr” (ancient lord) or “ék úr” (precious lord) and was the symbol
of a mountain (hegy)-god due to its
peaky (hegyes) horns.
The third sign of the fibula (hieroglyph “kõ” =stone,
“Ük kõ” =ancient stone, “Ük úr” =ancient lord, or “ökör” =ox) could represent
the sound “k” in Hunnish, just as in later Turkish or in Latin today. Later
(after the Hunnish period?) its sound value must have changed to “ö,” because
there were several “k” characters in Székely (there are two of them even now),
but perhaps there was no “ö.”
Development of the Hungarian language - the
development of a separate “ö” sound - could have made it necessary to apply the
“kõ” (stone; ökör=ox) sign to represent “ö.” This Turkish syllabic group sign
could have developed in connection with the Hungarian words kõ (stone), ük (ancient), ék
(precious), ökör (ox), etc.
Therefore, the three characters on the fibula should
be read letter by letter as szak,
which means “area, country” and is still used in the compound észak (North; éj szak = the territory of
the night). The inscription could also be read as szakõ (szent kõ =holy
stone) on the pattern of the Obi-Ugrian word sanki meaning “great god,” which is logical, based on the imagined
world mountain located at the North Pole and represented on the fibula.
The sza+kõ “holy stone” interpretation is also
supported by the following meanings of the related word szakáll (beard): “tail of a comet,” “the down on certain fruits or
seeds,” “dottle in meerschaum pipe,” “old man,” “hump on a loaf of bread,” “a
salient row of bricks under the chimney ledge,” which all refer to personification
or some kind of protrusion. The North Pole (the column of the world) is a
personified protrusion. As far as I know, the Hungarians have not connected a
similar image to any of the other cardinal points (South, West or East), that
is why the compounds keletszak and nyugatszak would make no sense, while
the rarely used expression “délszaki növény” (southern tropical plant) seems to
have developed by neologism.
The interpretation észak
deduced from szakõ and szak, however, appears to be more likely,
because the rules of vowel omission make it possible to pronounce the first
sound é before szak. That is, the
Hungarian word észak was written in
Székely letters on the Hunnish fibula.
The three-letter inscription and the column of the
world beneath it form an organic system and contribute to each other's
interpretation.
Considering its image, the fibula could be a royal
symbol. However, its simple execution renders it very probable to be a badge of
military rank. At a warrior’s funeral the fibula, normally hanging down, was
turned up and put into the graves to show the dead man's soul the way up to
Heaven. Grave finds from Hunnish graves of Nagyszéksós and Hungarian graves in
the region of upper
[1] This cast bronze ornament from the
The iron stud is behind the
bottom "s" rune, so the object could normally have been hanging
upside down and could be turned to the position shown in the figure only at
funerals (following the Hunnish-Hungarian idea of a mirror-like the
afterworld).
[2] The silver cup, whose origin is not
known, was found in the prairie of Keresztúr in Torontál county. The Milky Way
and its gap can be recognized in its center, with
[3] Turkish "a" is most
commonly written as a vertical wavy line similar to the Székely character for
the back “ak.” These two characters can be in genetic relation; both could have
developed as an abbreviation of the character denoting "ak."
Contents
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History of the scientific views on the origins of Székely runic script | 10. |
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