Chionites

"The Chionites formed a kingdom for a short time in the Shahr-i-Sabz valley in northern Baktria, when their ruins were found in the Er-kurgan. The ruling dynasty seems to have taken the name ’Kidara’." ^[1]
"... according to Gumilev, ...the Chionites (or Huni) were residents of “Marsh sites”, living on the northern shore of the Aral Sea and were descendants of the Saka tribe “Huaona”" ^{[2] [3]}
"The Ephthalites then controlled the whole of Central Asia, including the Tarim Basin, which had been untouched by the Chionites or Kidarites." ^[4]
"A portion of the Northern Huns, pressed back by the Chinese and later driven out of Mongolia by the Sienpi, settled between Lakes Balkash and Aral, and in about 300 A.D., overpowering the nomad tribe of the Chionites by which name they are mentioned in the the sources. These Eastern Huns are also called Kidarites." ^[5]

[1]: (Brentjes 1996) Burchard Brentjes. 1996. Arms of the Arms: And Other Tribes of the Central Asian Steppes. Rishi Publication.

[2]: KURBANOV, AYDOGDY 2010 THE HEPHTHALITES: ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS. PhD thesis submitted to the Department of History and Cultural Studies of the Free University, Berlin

[3]: Л.Н. Гумилев, Эфталиты и их соседи в IV веке. Вестник древней истории 1, 1959, 129-140

[4]: de la Vaissière, Étienne. 2012 Chapter 5. Central Asia and the Silk Road in The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (p. )Edited by Scott Fitzgerald Johnson DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336931.013.0005

[5]: Academie De Droit International. Recueil Des Cours, Volume 113 (1964/III). A W Sijthoff. Leyde. p. 579

levels.
"Ghirshman writes that under the influence of Brahmanism, a fusion resulted between the Iranian cult of the god Sun-Mithra-Mihira and the religion of India, so that Mihira became not only Surya but also Vishnu and Shiva without, however, losing the Iranian aspect of monotheism. He also noted that the main god of the Chionites-Hephthalites was the Sun-god and that later the cult of this God was connected with the cult of Mithra" ^{[1] [2]}

[1]: Kurbanov 2010 p.236

[2]: Ghirshman 1948, p.122-124.

levels.
"There seem to have been two subgroups of Xionites, which were known in the Iranian languages as the Karmir Xyon and Spet Xyon. The prefixes karmir ("red") and speta ("white") likely refer to Central Asian traditions in which particular colours are associated with cardinal points: red usually symbolises "south" and white "west". The Karmir Xyon were known in European sources as the Kermichiones or "Red Huns", and some scholars have identified them with the Kidarites and/or Alchon. The Spet Xyon or "White Huns" appear to have been the known in India by the cognate name Sveta-huna, and are often identified, controversially, with the Hephtalites." ^[1]
“They organised themselves into Northern "Black" (beyond the Jaxartes), Kidarites or Southern "Red" (in Hindu Kush south of the Oxus), Eastern "Blue" (in Tianshan), and Western Hephthalites or "White" (around Khiva) hordes. ”
"The Chionites who moved through Sogdiana to Iran, where they probably were absorebed by the settle population, may have been the first wave (of the ’Altaic migrations’...Two kinds of movement of the tribes appear in history, either a billiard ball effect of one tribe pushing another ahead of it, or a movement travelling through territory belonging to another tribe or settle dork. The latter seems to have been the case with the Chionites who went through Sogdiana on their way sou, as did the Huns and the Avars also in their invasions of Europe. As usual, they gathered others on the way in a kind of confederacy, which was the normal manner of creating a steppe state." ^[2]

[1]: Harold Walter Bailey, Iranian Studies, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. BSOAS, vol. 6, No. 4 p. 945 (1932)

[2]: Frye, Richard., and Litvinsky, Boris. 1996 Ch24.2 The Northern Nomads, Sogdina and Chorasmia. in: History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. ( de Laet, Sigfried J., Herrmann, Joachim.) p466 UNESCO

"Dehistan: Several Sasanian rulers used Hyrcania as a place from where to launch military expeditions against the nomads. This situation could have contributed to the
creation of a sort of no man’s land in the south of Dehistan, pushing populations either to move to the north-west of the plains, or to keep away from the border to the south. Among the peoples who motivated these defensive measures were the Chionites, who were established in the territory of Hyrcania, including the plain of Gorgan. It is against the resistance of probable descendants of the Chionites, known in the 5th century AD as Chols, that Arab warriors were to conquer the region in the 8th century AD. A typical settlement of that period in Dehistan is Geokjik-tepe, a fortified farm occupying 4.5 ha. The enclosure was contructed to the east of the largest, Iron Age tepe, probably in the 8th century AD. It measures 223m in height by 206 m in width with walls up to 2.60 m thick, contructed from square mud bricks (0.46x0.48 m). The enclosure is protected by circular towers on the corners and by semicircular towers regularly spaced along the walls. The enclosure of Geokjik-tepe illustrates a plan which is unusual, but widespread in Dehistan. In Dehistan the so called Central Mound was excavated by a joint Turkmen-French archaeological expedition. It is the largest mound (1.50 m high) in the centre of an enclosed area and revealed a large dwelling place. The type of fortified structure, for agricultural as well as defensive purposes (it would serve as a refuge- enclosure in times of danger, explaining the limited surface area occupied by the buldings), represents the synthesis of the occupation of Dehistan in this period, an agricultural region with a sedentary population, but also a nomadic one. This fortified farm, where pottery was also produced as indicated by numerous kiln fragments visible on the surface, most certainly characterized the settlement of the Chols, descendants of the Chionites, themselves related to the Hephthalites. The open space in the interior of the enclosure wall could accommodate yurts and herds in time of danger, as well being a place of exchange." ^{[1] [2]}

[1]: KURBANOV 2010 p.43-44

[2]: Lecomte, Gorgân and Dehistan. 2007. After Alexander Central Asia before Islam. Proceedings of the British Academy 133 (Oxford 2007) 295-312.

"According to Ammianus Marcellinus, during the funeral of the Chionite prince, younger son of the king Grumbat, killed at Amida, his corpse was burned in the area with artificially produced figures of his friends, who in this way symbolically accompanied him to the other world. Ammianus Marcellinus describes this as follows: ’He was carried out in the arms he was wont to wear, and placed on a spacious and lofty pile; around him ten couches were dressed, bearing effigies of dead men, so carefully laid out, that they resembled corpses already buried; and for seven days all the men in the companies and battalions celebrated a funeral feast, dancing, and singing melancholy kinds of dirges in lamentation for the royal youth...And the women, with pitiable wailing, deplored with their customary weepings the hope of their nation thus cut off in the early bloom of youth...When the body was burnt and the bones collected in a silver urn, which his father had ordered to be carried back to his native land, to be there buried beneath the earth, Sapor, after taking counsel, determined to propitiate the shade of the deceased prince by making the destroyed city of Amida his monument. Nor indeed was Grumbates willing to move onward while the shade of his only son remained unavenged.’ ^{[1] [2]} " ^[3]

[1]: Ammianus Marcellinius, 1894. p. 186-187 in The Roman history of Ammianus Marcellinius. Translated by C.D.Yonge (London, New York 1894)

[2]: Аммиан Марцеллин. Римская история (Санкт-Петербург 1996), p.166.

[3]: Kurbanov p.123-124

"Beshkent valley: Among the burial mounds in the Beshkent valley (southern Tajikistan) there are four (two of which are pit type) from the end of the 4 century AD - beginning of the 5th century, which are characterized by unity of rite: cremations outside the tomb, followed by burial of calcinated bones in a small, oval pit, elongated from the south to the north; the same size of pits, lack of ceramics. It is should be noted that in one of the burials an iron dagger without top was found. Mandelshtam, who explored these burials, considers them to the Chionites." ^{[1] [2] [3]}  ?“During the war with the Roman emperor Constantius II (317-61; Ammianus 19.2.3; cf. Göbl, II, p. 287), they were responsible for the eastern section of the wall. Their king, Grumbates, lost a son in the battle, and the subsequent funeral ceremonies and cremation were vividly described by Ammianus (19.1.7-19.2.1).”

[1]: KURBANOV, AYDOGDY 2010 THE HEPHTHALITES: ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS. PhD thesis submitted to the Department of History and Cultural Studies of the Free University, Berlin p.41

[2]: Мандельштам 1963 Послекушанские погребения в Северной Бактрии. Краткиесообщения Института археологии 94, p.89-93

[3]: Мандельштам 1964, К истории Бактрии-Тохаристана (некоторые археологические наблюдения). Краткие сообщения Института археологии 98, p.25

"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." [Graff 2016, p. 146]

"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." [Graff 2016, p. 146]

"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." [Graff 2016, p. 146]

Seal - "In the Eastern Department of the State Hermitage a gem-seal is preserved. It is oval and made from almandine, with a flat bottom and a convex top. At the top, there is the bust of a man, the Bactrian inscription and a peculiar tribal mark – a tamgha (according to Göbl tamgha S 1). At the centre of the stamp is placed a portrait of a middle-aged man. His head is presented in profile, rotated by three-quarters. The face is elongated, beardless with long pendulous mustache, forked at the end. The nose is long and straight lines stress the nostrils. On the head there is a small cap with a sheaf of three feathers. From left to right are italic words read as Aspurabah, probably the name of the owner of the stamp. The tamgha placed behind the man’s head represents, according to Stavisky, “the Hephthalite character”. However, Stavisky supposes this seal is related to the Chionites. not to the Hephthalites, because the mark is not found at all on Hephthalite coins, but only on those where we find the word “Hion”, the self-name of the Chionites, which dates to the 4 century AD Marshak thought that the date should be somewhat later and according to him the sign is found on the late coins as well." ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}

[1]: Kurbanov, 2010. p.72-73

[2]: Ставиский, 1961. Хионитская гемма-печать. Сообщения Государственного Эрмитажа, p.55-56.

[3]: Б. И. Маршак / Я. К. Крикис, 1969. Чилекские чаши. Труды Государственного Эрмитажа Х, p.79

[4]: Göbl (1967-I, 235-236) dates this gem first half of 5th century AD (Göbl, Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen in Baktrien und Indien I- IV, Wiesbaden 1967)