I've heard repeatedly that Attila was a Mongoloid. Is this correct?

"The Huns themselves were a people of mystery and terror. Arriving on the fringes of the Roman Empire in the late fourth century, riding their war horses out of the great steppes of Asia, they struck fear into Germanic barbarians and Romans alike."

"His features, according to the observation of a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin...a large head, a swarthy complexion, small, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square body, of a nervous strength, though of a disproportioned form."

http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=61

Thanks Justin.

I wonder why Attila is usually depicted as White in movies.

http://www.crystalinks.com/attila.gif

Haha, yeah. Certainly looks Mongoloid.

Pope Leo halting Attila, by Algardi Alessandro (1595-1654):

http://www.thais.it/scultura/image/sch00366.jpg

I do agree that the Huns themselves were Mongoloid though.

Thanks Justin.

I wonder why Attila is usually depicted as White in movies.
Cause he's the bad guy.

I wonder why Attila is usually depicted as White in movies.

Not in this movie.This one is from 1954,with Jack Palance(he is half white,half native american-at least I think so)as Attila.He fits my description of a Hun.
http://www.prisma-online.de/image/a9/mm85cfbfa3d123e1a9.jpeg

The other thing is that the only oriental who did any movies before a certain point in history was Yul Brenner( not sure how you spell it). In old movies about China the "Chinese" are all played by white guys.

The other thing is that the only oriental who did any movies before a certain point in history was Yul Brenner( not sure how you spell it). In old movies about China the "Chinese" are all played by white guys.
Yul Brynner(Taidje Khan)was strange looking fellow.He often claimed to be a half-Swiss, half- Japanese named Taidje Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality he was the son of Boris Bryner, a Swiss-Mongolian engineer and inventor, and Marousia Blagavidova, the daughter of a Russian doctor.He played all kinds of rolles from pharaoh Ramses to German officer.
http://www.peoples.ru/art/cinema/actor/brynner/brynner_1.jpg

Yul was cul.

The other thing is that the only oriental who did any movies before a certain point in history was Yul Brenner( not sure how you spell it). In old movies about China the "Chinese" are all played by white guys.
I've never seen Chinamen played by White guys. Are their eyes pulled back with scotch tape?

http://www.crystalinks.com/attila.gif

Haha, yeah. Certainly looks Mongoloid.

Pope Leo halting Attila, by Algardi Alessandro (1595-1654):

http://www.thais.it/scultura/image/sch00366.jpg


Of course, depictions of Atilla made over a millenium after his death are very accurate portrayals of his phenotype. The descriptions given by his contemporary historians, are, on the other hand, entirely without merit. :rolleyes:

Idiot.

I've never seen Chinamen played by White guys. Are their eyes pulled back with scotch tape?
Watch some old movies from the 50s and back... Ghenghis Khan for one.

Yul Brynner is the only oriental( well half apparently) in them.

I've never seen Chinamen played by White guys. Are their eyes pulled back with scotch tape?
Yes they did tape their eyes back. Rent the movie "The Good Earth". I had to watch it for English class. I found it extremely funny.

Correction Genghis Khan was played by Omar Sharif.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059219/

Check the cast, no orientals as late as 1965.

http://www.crystalinks.com/attila.gif

I do agree that the Huns themselves were Mongoloid though.

So how do explain Attila's leadership of the Huns? This should be good.

HUNgaria was the last stronghold of the HUNS...They mixed with Europeans so long that at the end of thier empire they looked European..Atilla was not of the original HUN tribes..He was adopted into the tribe and that is why his brother hated him and the waged war against each other..He was of more a European decent than magolioid..


Leopold..

It is easy to say that Attila was mongoloid, because he attacked against Rome, but what was Rome in that time? Full of lazies fat homosexuals ;)

Attila and Huns were Whites, Scythian origin (like my nation too) :)

Wasn't King Etzel of the Niebelungenlied based on Attila the Hun? In that epic at least he is not portrayed as any more of a savage or a warmonger than his Burgundian contemporaries, nor is he presented as foreign-looking in any way (I seem to recall a passage describing him as tall and fair-skinned, a most unlikely Mongol). The "Huns" probably had more Turkic than Mongol blood to begin with, as Hungarian is an Ugro-Finnic language closely allied to Turkic.

The "Huns" probably had more Turkic than Mongol blood to begin with, as Hungarian is an Ugro-Finnic language closely allied to Turkic.

The ancestral Turkic type is Turanid - Mediterranean mixed with Mongoloid (in varying proportions).

Xiongnu Culture - Third Century BCE (http://www.silk-road.com/artl/xiongnu1.shtml)
Hunnish Writing (http://sophistikatedkids.com/turkic/32WritingHuns/Diggiz3En.htm)
Xiongnu (http://xiongnu.myrunet.com/)

Xiongnu are Turko-Mongolian nomadic people, who speak Altaic language and move migrate following water and grass. From the Chinese source, they are identified as short people with stock body and a very large round head, broad face, prominent cheek-bones, wide nostrils, a fairly bushy mustache and no beard except for a tuft of stiff hair on the chin; their long ears are pierced and adorned with a ring. The head is usually shaved, except for a tuft on the top. They wear a loose robe to the calf, split at the sides and gathered in by a girdle whose ends hang down in front.

The 'European Huns' were probably related to the Uighurs (http://uighur.narod.ru/uighur.html), the Huns used a similar Orkhon (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/orkhon.htm)-based alphabet, the Uighurs have called themselves 'Huns' in the past. The 'European Huns' migrated from the Altai-Siberia area, capturing slaves, women, even had various Germanic and Indo-European tribes voluntarily join them to fight against the Romans. The people who joined them 'became Huns'. By the time they got to Europe they were a pretty mixed group, but all accounts of Attila describe him as predominantly Mongoloid. :)

- "In that epic at least he is not portrayed as any more of a savage or a warmonger than his Burgundian contemporaries, nor is he presented as foreign-looking in any way (I seem to recall a passage describing him as tall and fair-skinned, a most unlikely Mongol)."


Nibelungenlied does not contain much of what we might call "a reliable history."

A famous 6th-century source, Gothic historian Jordanes, gives this rather Mongoloid-sounding description of Attila:

"He was short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with gray; and he had a flat nose and a swarthy complexion, showing the evidences of his origin."

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#attila


By the way, one of Attila's sons was named Dengizik - basically the same name as "Genghis".

Attila's father had a very "Mongolesque" name too - Mundzuk.

(The guy who played "Dersu Uzala," the ultimate Mongoloid, in that Akíra Kurosawa movie, was a Siberian Mongol named Maksim Munzuk.)


Petr

Of course, depictions of Atilla made over a millenium after his death are very accurate portrayals of his phenotype. The descriptions given by his contemporary historians, are, on the other hand, entirely without merit. :rolleyes:

Idiot.

I was commenting on the pictures :p

So how do explain Attila's leadership of the Huns? This should be good.

What's this supposed to mean? He appealed to myth and tradition, pride and the desires of his followers, and then used them to heighten his own power and kill off a lot of people. Pretty simple, isn't it? And what does that have to do with what race Attila was from?

The only people who have tried to claim Attila the Hun as a white man has been Hollywood and probably some morons on Stormfront. I don't know why artists started to depict him as a white guy, or an Anatolian Turk with a giant hooked nose. Maybe Europeans were just ashamed at the idea that a bunch of stocky Asian nomads came out of nowhere and beat their asses so bad.

On a slightly related side note has anyone else noticed the stormfront.org/whitehistory/ directory hosts 2 conflicting accounts of Genghis Khan? Karl Earlson (http://www.white-history.com/earlson/genghis.htm) claims Genghis Khan was Nordish (LOL) and Arthur Kemp (http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr32.htm) claims he was an 'Asiatic Mongol' (his catch-all phrase for anyone born East of the Danube). :p

The only people who have tried to claim Attila the Hun as a white man has been Hollywood and probably some morons on Stormfront. I don't know why artists started to depict him as a white guy, or an Anatolian Turk with a giant hooked nose. Maybe Europeans were just ashamed at the idea that a bunch of stocky Asian nomads came out of nowhere and beat their asses so bad.

On a slightly related side note has anyone else noticed the stormfront.org/whitehistory/ directory hosts 2 conflicting accounts of Genghis Khan? Karl Earlson (http://www.white-history.com/earlson/genghis.htm) claims Genghis Khan was Nordish (LOL) and Arthur Kemp (http://www.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr32.htm) claims he was an 'Asiatic Mongol' (his catch-all phrase for anyone born East of the Danube). :p

Sarah, this time I cannot agree with you :mad:

Attila was Scythian origin (like all Huns). Scythians were whites, like Sumerians before of them and just like Finns and Hungarians etc are now! :)

Genghis Khan was mongolian ;) That is true... ;)

- "Attila was Scythian origin (like all Huns). Scythians were whites, like Sumerians before of them and just like Finns and Hungarians etc are now!"


Mere wishful thinking.

Sorry, ScythianShamanist, but check out that Jordanes link that I gave you. Attila was a typical representative of his Mongoloid race - swarthy, with small eyes, short stature and almost beardless.

Listen how this contemporary historian describes the appearance of Huns:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#huns


"For by the terror of their features they inspired great fear in those whom perhaps they did not really surpass in war. They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. (128) Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in pride."


Petr

And of course Attilla's huns came from East of where the Scythians were( they had already been displaced by the Sarmartians by that time I believe but then the Sarmartians were in driven west or conquered by the Huns).

Interesting link Petr, but who knows :p

http://img17.exs.cx/img17/8605/mongolhorsemen5hj.jpg
"There's a party going on in Central Europe, dude! Beer and babes, you in?"

- "In that epic at least he is not portrayed as any more of a savage or a warmonger than his Burgundian contemporaries, nor is he presented as foreign-looking in any way (I seem to recall a passage describing him as tall and fair-skinned, a most unlikely Mongol)."


Nibelungenlied does not contain much of what we might call "a reliable history."

A famous 6th-century source, Gothic historian Jordanes, gives this rather Mongoloid-sounding description of Attila:

"He was short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with gray; and he had a flat nose and a swarthy complexion, showing the evidences of his origin."

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#attila


By the way, one of Attila's sons was named Dengizik - basically the same name as "Genghis".

Attila's father had a very "Mongolesque" name too - Mundzuk.

(The guy who played "Dersu Uzala," the ultimate Mongoloid, in that Akíra Kurosawa movie, was a Siberian Mongol named Maksim Munzuk.)


Petr

Excuse me for interrupting the western history class but here's something NOT written by Romans or any other western civilization (you know, the victims of Attila):

Attila's father was called Bendegúz by the Huns and Magyars (they spoke virtually the same language) and Balambér by the Kazars, Ostrogoths and every other "foreign" folk under the command of Attila. He was described as a pale, moderately tall man with black hair (If someone sees a healthy and pale mongoloid, take a picture and show me). We know from Magyar historians (also, people who can write, tend to take down their history, that may be a crucial point in searching for answers), that the Uralic tribes around the Huns and Magyars (Magna Hungaria) were sorted in the following large "nations" (nemzetiségek):
- Black Huns (actual Huns, head of the nation after the death of Bendegúz was Attila), they had darker skin, dark hair and dark green or brown eyes.
- White Huns/Hun-ugors/Magyars (second largest tribe, sons of Magor, brother of Hunor. Attila's brother, Buda was the leader until he died in a battle against Goths), they had lighter skin, brown hair and virtually only green eyes.
- White Magyars/Tribe of Suoma (originally from the tribe of Góg, Magóg has led them north long before the birth of Bendegúz), they had pale skin and narrow eyes which were either blue or green (perhaps due to mixing with tribes of Magóg, like Black Huns)

I don't know what sons Attila had (there were a lot), but only TWO of them were designated as possible heirs to the throne: Csaba and Aladár. Aladár died by Csaba's hand and Csaba didn't live to reach Mongolia (he didn't really want to. His goal was before his death to reach Magna Hungaria to call the Magyars to recapture Pannónia)


I hope that was more informative than foreign notes on Attila. The Byzantine even called him a negroid-looking savage who ate the heads of dogs and bathed in blood. I'm sure you trust the Byzantine, but it's not very probable.

Most information is from the Arvisura, the rest is what I learned in Hungarian history back in Transylvania (facultative subject).

Magyars entered Central Europe more than 400 years after the demise of the Hunnish empire - why should we consider them to be reliable witnesses on the issue of Attila's ethnicity?

This 6th-century Gothic historian that I am quoting, Jordanes, had a much better access to reliable information than these later Hungarian (or German) legends.


Petr

More than 1500 years after the collapse of their empire, the Huns are still a symbol of barbary, cruelty and fighting fury. But the reality is far more complex. Before Attila launched major attacks on the Roman Eastern and Western Empires, Huns had been frequently used as auxiliaries in the late Roman army. For example, they had been used against on the Burgundian Kingdom of Worms and the Wisigothic Kingdom of Toulouse. They proved very efficient in both these campaigns and many others.

Moreover, contrary to the image portrayed in the 19th century literature and more recent Hollywood movies, not all of the so called "Huns" were Asiatic. During the reign of Attila, the "Hun" army was a mix of Caucasians, nomads from the Volga River basin and the Urals and Germanic warriors.

Their religion remains obscure, based most probably on shamanic practices. At the end of their empire, they adopted aSarmatian cult, the worship of a war god symbolised by a sword. Attila is thought to have used this belief that a sword found in the ground by a hunnnic shepherd was the sword of the god of war to enhance his prestige and to justify the campaign in Gaul).

Fast moving, well organized, the formidable hun warriors used the typical tactics of the steppe: demoralisation of the enemy, encirclement, showers of arrows to break the ranks and a furious charge with long swords to finish off the last resistance. The lasso (lariat) is also mentioned by the Roman author Ammien Marcellin as a traditional weapon of the Hunnic people.

The double edged straight swords could measure more than a meter. They had a characteristic diamond-shaped iron guard (sometimes decorated with garnets). Their composite bow was asymmetric, that is to say the lower part was shorter than the upper part. Thus, the bow was easier to use on horseback with no loss on precision. The bow was of such an importance for the Huns that some chiefs were buried with gold-plated bows.

It seems that there were at least two kinds of troops: a majority of light cavalrymen without any particular protection serving as archers and an elite of heavily armoured cavalrymen fighting in scale armour, using long sword and spear in the sarmatian way.

http://www.samarkandia.com/en/detail.peuple.php?id=3

Magyars entered Central Europe more than 400 years after the demise of the Hunnish empire - why should we consider them to be reliable witnesses on the issue of Attila's ethnicity?

This 6th-century Gothic historian that I am quoting, Jordanes, had a much better access to reliable information than these later Hungarian (or German) legends.


Petr

Magyars were part of the Hunnish empire (if you look at the map, it was reaching China). They not only have been in contact with Attila's front, they were vassals and they have also had to fight in Attila's wars. All of the vassals had to. The archives were moved to Magna Hungaria because the Huns were slaughtering eachother, that's why.
"Hungarian (or German) legends"??? They were not Hungarian, but they were kept by Hungarians (logically, because they prefered NOT to slaughter and burn their own kin). German? huh? who talks about Germans? How did they get into this? Legends? These are legends as much as Jordanes' writings. They just are different sources (and I still don't understand how a historian got a that exact view of Attila... untrusted messengers were not allowed to approach him, he got enough assassination attempts, opposed to that, the scribes were omni-present around Attila, for they have noted the spoils of war under Attila's eye).

- "German? huh? who talks about Germans? How did they get into this?"


Nibelungenlied (which mentions Attila) has been mentioned on this thread.


Petr

Nibelungenlied



Nibelungenlied was writen in austria in 1100-1200 from remains of the Völsung saga and other stories about the fall of Burgund.

- "German? huh? who talks about Germans? How did they get into this?"


Nibelungenlied (which mentions Attila) has been mentioned on this thread.


Petr

I said nothing about the Nibelungen, if you look closely, I also state my sources... Oh, I DO mention the Nibelungen as "something written by a western civilization". Yep, that includes Nibelungen and Jordanes.