A Hephthalite or Alchon Hun rider, possibly King Javukha, 5th C. CE

November 19, 2023

A Hephthalite or Alchon Hun rider, possibly King Javukha, 5th C. CE

This statue was an offering to the God Zhun, which may have been a Hunnic solar deity associated with fire or a variant spelling of the Iranian God of time, Zurwan. Info from Sino-Platonic Paper 290:

"The horse-and-rider statuette in the Pritzker Family Collection, Chicago, is perhaps the most important art object produced by the Hephthalites yet known, and especially of the art of the Alkhons now being fully presented here for the very first time.

Tight legging-like trousers might go back to types of trousers common on the “Scythian” steppes of Eurasia, also used at that time by Achaemenidian riding warriors. The only weapon worn by the rider is the common but precious longsword of the preceeding Kushans, but its type and shape go back to longswords known from the Eurasian steppebelt.

The same can be said about such horse equipment as the tassels and phalerae. The fashion of the trappings of the horse’s mane and the covered tail are a typical features of Eurasian nomadic culture too. The earrings consist of relatively large, rounded rings, each decorated with eight pearls. These earrings are of an ancient Iranian earring type going back to the Achaemenid period, and the type was still used until the Parthian period in the region of Taxila/Gandhara, but, as we see here, also for a much longer period. Having this in mind, we do not find it surprising that the Alkhons/Alxons as an Iranian ethnicum still used such hoop earrings during the fifth century C E.

For some items shown on our statuette it cannot be clearly said whether they are Iranian in the widest sense of the word, or if they are of nomadic origin, i.e.,” Scythian”or “Sarmatian”; but the influences from the nomads of the Eurasian steppes are clear.

Until now we have not known of such three-dimensional bronze works or statues and statuettes from Hephthalite times.

Very important for the date of our statuette is the reading of the punched inscription written in cursive Greek letters in the Bactrian-Iranian language. This inscription has been read and discussed in detail by Nicholas Sims-Williams. In his work, the inscriptions reads, translated: “Hrilad gave (this) to the God Zhun.”

Following an email exchange (November 20, 2017) in which Nicholas Sims-Williams kindly informed me that, due to the type of the starting Greek letter “ypsilon,” the inscription inscribed on our rider’s helmet dates it to no later than the late fifth century C E .

So far no scholar has questioned this, so we must assume that it is true, and it follows that our statuette was designed, cast, and worked not later than during the later second half of the fifth century C E , when the Alkhons ruled Bactria and Gandhara.

We do not know who the man calling himself “Hrilad” was, but we can assume that he was a Alxon/Alkhon noble from the entourage of an Alxon/Alkhon ruler.

What we see is a behelmeted, aristocratic, noble Alkhon ruler on horseback with all necessary insignia and symbols of power during, or soon after, his investiture. Once he held a ring or wreath in his right hand, which clearly means that this Alkhon ruler is shown in the moment of getting his power in a ceremony of investiture from a God. We cannot decide yet if this power-giving God really should have been Zhun; but this cannot be ruled out, because the inscription looks as if it were punched into the helmet directly after the statuette’s surface was finished.

Provided that the results of the intense study of the coins of the Alkhons by Klaus Vondrovec are right, and I do not doubt it, then only one Alkhon ruler can and must be identified as the rider on our statuette; and this ruler is Javukha; and he is the same Javukha mentioned in the Buddhist Talagan copper scroll.

He is the only Alkhon ruler shown adorned with those hooped earrings on his coins, — no other Alkhon ruler is shown with such earrings! It must also be mentioned here, that Javukha is the only Alkhon ruler whose coin designs show an Alkhon ruler on horseback. Javukha’s horseman-type coins are styled after Gupta-Indian prototypes, i.e., those of Chandragupta II (375–415) and Kumaragupta I (415–455). This necessarily means a decided interest of Javukha in horses as a religious and ideological symbol. If and how the horse and rider of our statuette, i.e., Javukha as a Hunnic ruler can be connected with the sacral kingship suggested for pre-Islamic rulers of Central Asia, cannot be ruled out, but also not be proved.

It is possible to think that, in such religiously tolerant times as those under the Alkhon-Huns, a man like Hrilad, from the entourage of Javukha, might possibly have donated the horse-and-rider statuette at a temple of the God Zhun in the morning, while in the afternoon he joined the inauguration of the Buddhist stupa at Talangan.

This statuette is certainly the most important piece of fine art of the Hephthalite and Alkhon period of Bactria (modern Afghanistan) to be discovered within the last hundred years, and it should and must be discussed again in the future."

-taken from Sino-Platonic Paper 290: A Unique Alxon-Hunnic Horse-and-Rider Statuette (Late Fifth Century CE) from Ancient Bactria / Modern Afghanistan in the Pritzker Family Collection, Chicago by Ulf Jäger. Victor H. Mair, Editor.