Avar/Langobard luxury dagger 600 CE
"The Extermination: Mercilessly attacked on two sides, the Hephthalites were completely broken and disappeared by 565 that only small number of them survived. Some surviving groups living south of Oxus escaped Chosroes' grasp later fell to Arab invaders in the 7th century. One of the surviving groups fled to the west and may have been the ancestors of the later Avars in the Danube region." (taken from the SilkroadFoundation)
The Avar Khaganate was created in the 560s, immediately after the destruction of the Hephthalite Empire. According to Theophylact Simocatta, the Var and Chunni had fled the Turks and were mistaken for the Avars by the people they came across. The Var and Chunni renamed themselves Avars because it instilled a mixture of fear and respect. Menander Protector states that the Turks showed up immediately and informed the Byzantines that the Avars that had settled in Pannonia were not real Avars, but were called "Varchonites".
Some scholars consider the Pannonian Avars to be a remnant of, or at least partially descended from, the Hephthalites (White Huns) who escaped the Turks and moved westward, settling in the old territory of Attila (modern-day Hungary). Prior to the Hephthalite Empire a people called the Chionites lived in exactly the same location in Central Asia. It is possible the Chionites were the same people or were absorbed into the new Hunnic nation. The Chinese sometimes referred to the Hephthalites as the "Hua". Hua and Chionite together is very similar to Varchonite, giving some linguistic curiosity to the possibility that some Hephthalites escaped to Europe in the 560s CE. I couldn't find any genetic information on the Hephthalites at all, so for now this is just speculation based on literature and names.
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| Avar/Langobard luxury dagger 600 CE. 5 1/4 x 2 7/16 x 5/8in. (13.3 x 6.2 x 1.6cm). The Met Museum states this may be a dagger of Avar origin. Found in a Langobard/Lombard horseman's grave in Italy. |
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