Sources for Hungarian prehistory

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The fall of Communism in Hungary has recharged attempts to reconstruct Hungarian prehistory. Everyone from historians to scientists to laypeople are taking a multidisciplinary approach and looking at genetics, culture, and language. In addition to a reexamination of the classical written sources, often the disciplines of anthropology, ethnomusicology, ethnography, sociology, and linguistics are employed.

Contents

[edit] Written sources

The following main Hungarian chronicles contain the early legends and history of the Huns, Magyars and the Kingdom of Hungary:

The Magyar tribes appeared in the written sources in the 830s and the sources suggest that they were living north of the Black Sea at that time.[1] The following records are usually connected to the Magyars, although some of the authors do not accept the identification of the people mentioned in the sources with them.[1]

[edit] Anthropology

Anthropology can point to a Hungarian urheimat through physiological research. The logic follows that such an urheimat can be sought where people lived, or still live who are physically like the Magyars of the Conquest period. The Uyghur cemetery at Astana near the Jungar Gate provides a possible answer to this, revealed by Aurel Stein between 1913 and 1915, with 1200 more graves discovered by the Uyghurs and Chinese in 1986. The people buried there were physically the same as the Hungarians who settled in the Carpathian Basin. Also demonstrative is the fact that typically Turanian, Pamirian and Taurid genetic elements, that entered the Carpathian Basin with the Hungarians, are common only among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, but occur nowhere else in Europe.

[edit] Forensic genetics

Aside from physiology, genetic research has provided clues about ethnic origins and kinships. Within the blood group system attributed to Landsteiner, the rate of the typically Hungarian "0" and "B" blood types (31.05% and 17.90%) is off from that of Indo-European and Finno-Ugric nations, but is within the range found among Central Asian Turkic nations. Besides this, there is another blood type among Hungarians, the Diego [A+], present in no other people of Europe. The "Mongolian spot" has a 22.6% occurrence and Lactose intolerance, rare elsewhere in Europe, is at 37% among Hungarians. The skin splinter system of Hungarians has Central Asian characteristic (low bend rates, but high vortices). The Gm-marker research pointed out that the Gm abst and Gm afb3 gene markers occurring among Hungarians are missing among other European populations. Mitochondrial DNA research has also recently identified additional Central Asian characteristics among Hungarians (approx. 5% of the samples).[2]

[edit] Linguistics

While most linguists are in agreement that Hungarian is to be classified with the Ugric languages, there are books like "Of the origins of the Hungarian Language other way around" by Peter Sara (1994) and the works of Laszlo Maracz (2000) that support a closer connection with Turkic languages.

The Codex Isfahani is said to be a Hunnic-Armenian dictionary and grammar in a 10th c. Turkish transcription that supposedly contains almost the entire Hungarian basic vocabulary as "Hunnic". This document surfaced around 1860, but its current whereabouts are unknown.

[edit] Writing system

Hungarians arrived in Europe with their own writing system. The uniquely Hungarian runes most likely originated in Central Asia.

The distinctly spiritual relationship Hungarians have with their script recalls that of other peoples such as the Etruscans, Sogdians, Bactrians, etc.. This script was used not only by monarchs, but by commoners as well. The 3000 year old Central Asian scripts published by S. Tovuudorj in 1995 prove that their basic 13 consonants have not changed since that time. The Hungarians arrived in Europe with a developed script and could easily have kept the writing and its spirit, just as their language, alive until today.

[edit] Music

The history of folk music and instruments plays an important role among the sciences searching for the cultural affinities of the Hungarian people. Hungarian music is pentatonic, quart or quint shifting, descending scale, and proclitically ending, like Turkish music. The primary characteristics of Asian music are its zest, diction, use of decorative voices, presence of glissando, narrow melodic range of voices, its trichord-tritonic-tetrachord-tetratonic-pentachord modality, the existence of bard songs and lamentations, psalmodic recitation, unison, and the characteristic rhythms (syncope, changing of sharp and prolative rhythms, etc.). The kinship between Hungarian and Turkish folk music was pointed out by Zoltan Kodaly, based on the collection of Bela Bartok in 1939.

Thanks to collectors of Hungarian folk music, 200,000 folk songs have been registered and some 100,000 published in print. This makes Hungarians among the most musically prolific per capita (pop. 15 million) anywhere in the world. Ancient Hungarian instruments that have been preserved include: typical drums, hit gardon, lyre, cimbalom, shepherd's pipe (csilinka), twin-flute, longflute, reed, Turkish whistle (or rather oboe-like shawm), bard whistle, and the Hungarian bagpipe (Duda), etc.

[edit] Visual art

Among the basic motifs of Hungarian folk art the tulip plays a central role alongside the carnation, the pomegranate, the corn-flower and the peacock. Hungarian folk art is built with richness around the tulip, a flower first cultivated in Central Asia on the perimeter of the Gobi desert. This tulip motif found among Hungarians can also be found in the same form in Central Asia.

Hungarian folk art contains many other Central Asian stylistic elements: ligamentures, "S"-shaped frizzling leaf forms, double frizzles, rosettas, sunwheels, swivel crosses, spirals, winged suns, use of rosetta and palmetta. The symbolism of Hungarian folk art is specifically Central Asian: peacock – immortality, tulip – woman, griffin – eternal light, heart – love, flower in flower – fertility, pomegranate – abundant descendants, etc.

The love symbols, the ornamental use of the sun and the moon, the stag and dragon emblems and the Life tree, with the religious beliefs connected with these, are unusual in Europe. Hungarian decorative imagery is characterized by a desultory, rich diversity, a love of flowers, a deep sympathy with nature, a proper sense of ratio.

the power, the rest, the serious conflicts of the lividness of big plain areas and the fire of congested frittering, the manly avoidance of slobber or of risible tints...

—Aladar Fay, 1941

Two specific elements of Hungarian architecture that originated in Central Asia are the Székely gate and the wooden plinth, both unique in Europe.

[edit] Dance

Hungarian dance is uniquely rich in Europe.

Hungarians could keep something from the dance art brought from Asia, and widely different from any other dance arts of Europe -- specifically Hungarian

—Laszlo Felfoldi, 1996

Many dance teachers (notably György Martin and Sándor Timar) have been able to rescue the art of Hungarian dance from the verge of disappearance and bring it to our everyday life. The specific moves of many modern Hungarian dances continue to reflect the ancient sacrificial rites and martial dances.

[edit] Religion

See also: Hungarian mythology

In spite of numerous and degrading assertions to the contrary, the fact is that the ancestors of the Hungarians were never truly "pagans". The ancient Hungarians were monotheistic, as were other nations of the steppes, being close to nature – the Sun and moon, rain, snow, and wind.

Monotheism is common among the stockherding equestrian nations of the steppes, and a centrepiece in the practice of the Hungarians' religion was the model of the Central Asian ruler, ruled by the grace of God, acting for Him. The king of the Huns was the "Son of Heaven". All Hungarian vocabulary related to God and faith has a Central Asian Turkic origin: isten (God), lélek (soul), imád (adore), menny (Heaven), boldog (blessed), böjt (fasting), vétek (transgression), bűn (sin), bocsát (forgive), búcsú (saint's day), hit (faith), teremt (create) örök (eternal), etc..

Of course they respected the elements – the Sun, moon, fire, Water and Earth – but the shape of the One God always rose above the world of spirits. Theophylactos Simocattes wrote about it thus:

The Turks (Hungarians) respect the fire, Air, and Water, honouring the Earth with hymns, but worship and call God only the One, Who created the universe...

And the following can be read at Anonymus:

The leader Árpád, whose helper was the God of All... prayed to God in tears... and the helper of the Leader Álmos was the Holy Spirit... Tas, Szabolcs and Tétény saw, as God gave them victory...

The symbol of the cross can be seen on the sabretache cover plate from Bezdéd, and in graves from the age of settlement. It is very important to note that the ancient Magyars have never had shamans as have the Siberian nations, but rather wise priests, táltos, who had extraordinary knowledge, and "organized the spiritual world of the Hungarians under the God of Hungarians" (Imre Harangozó).

Such motifs can be known in totemism, those backbones lead us into the world of the monotheism of Central Asian Turkestan

—Béla Gunda

The ancient Magyars had already become acquainted with Christianity while in the Caucasus. In about 530 AD, the Armenian bishops Qaurduct, then Maq, converted the Onogurs. Then in 644 a Turk monarch with all his nation converted to Christianity, as commemorated by Armenian authors. We can also read about the Christianity of the ancient Magyars in the legends of Cyril and Method. In 948 Bulcsú and Tormás (Termatsu) were baptised in Constantinople, then the headman Gyula in 953. Later Ajtony, Géza and István converted to Christianity in Vidin. The honouring of the Hungarian and Central Asian Mother-god cult – the Blessed Woman, or "Woman of Beauty" (Baba Maria) – found expression in the cult of Virgin Mary.


[edit] Folklore

The Hungarian folktale is a treasure in the search for the Hungarian past that has only lately been discovered. Its richness and diversity is unique in the world. Its distinguishing characteristic is to reflect on the universality of the bequeathed primeval knowledge in the whole of its purity. The people once knew their history more accurately than the authors of chronicles.

Hungarian heroic tales, fairy-tales, and charm tales have a probable Central Asian (Turkic) origin, as recently published collections of Turkish tales have tended to confirm. The heroes and shapes of Hungarian folklore belong to no European tales, and are not easily fathomed by a Eurocentric mind. The "far country", the world beyond, often above the sky or under the Earth, can be explained through the "tree of Life", and heroic Hungarian tales can be properly appreciated only within the Central Asian context of taltos.

The turul legends and the imaginary griffin were likewise begotten by nearly identical Central Asian myths, and played a specific rôle for the ancestors of Hungarians. The turul, that never nested west of the Carpathian Basin, even became the badge of the Hungarian rulers. Hungarians coming from the east evidently brought these Central Asian beliefs with them to the west, where they were unknown, or at least not likely to be known.

[edit] Flora & Fauna

Hungarian farming and stockherding vocabularies have Turkic origins. Examples include: eke - plough, árpa - barley, búza - wheat, dara - groats, gyümölcs - fruit, szőlő - grape, bor - wine, kecske - goat, kos - ram, bélyeg - brand mark, gyapjú - wool, toklyó - year-old lamb, etc.[3]

If the Hungarians' ancestors had been mere "nomadic shepherds", then they too would have disappeared among the surrounding nations, as happened to many tribal nations during the time of the great migrations. As no one pursued the Hungarians at any time, and the Carpathian Basin was not occupied of necessity, they had the luxury of bringing ancient Hungarian animals and plants along with them.

Ancient Hungarian cereals included wheats such as wild einkorn (Triticum monococcum), emmer (T. dicoccoides and T. tricoccum), and spelt (T. aestivum subsp. spelta); proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. hexastichum), rye (Secale cereale), fat hen (Chenopodium album); harvesting and threshing did not happen in the European manner.

Ancient types of ploughs were the crooked plough, the digging plough and the bed plough. Trucks lens (Lens culinaris), lentil vetch (Vicia sativa var. lentisperma), pea (Pisum sativum), chick-pea (Cicer arietinum), galajt (Galium spurium), gourd (Lagenaria sicenaria), the Asian original onion (Allium cepa) and garlic (Allium sativum), cabbage (Brassica oleracea Capitata Group), kohlrabi (Brassica oleracea Caulorapa Group), Caucasian celery (Apium garveolens), the ancient world's oldest granted parsnip (Pansinaca sativa subsp. sativa), prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola), common sorrel (Rumex rugosus), spinach from Asia Minor (Spinacea oleracea), the cultivated radish from Asia Minor (Raphanus sativus) and the Central Asian, the best of the Chinese, the eggplant (Solanum melongena), etc. were known (Ferenc Gyulai).

Hungarian fruits included the apple (Malus domestica), the China-originated peach (Prunus persica), the Central Asian apricot (Prunus armenica), Persian walnut (Juglans regia), the "European" plum (first cultivated in Asia) (Prunus domestica), cornel (Cornus mas), the cantaloupe (Cucumis melo) from India and Middle Asia, the watermelon, first cultivated in China (Citrullus lanatus), the pear, cultivated in Asia (Pyrus domestica), the nut, the sweet cherry (Prunus avium) and sour cherry (Prunus cerasus), etc.

Hungarians also had specific Central Asian ("Turanian") knowledge about viniculture. All Hungarian vineyarding and winemaking-related words are of ancient Turkic origin. Their ancestors arrived in Europe along with winerods, as the Hungarian sort of grapes and viniculture doesn't even belong to the sphere of Roman viniculture. "Even if Roman and earlier knowledge of viniculture lived on, those were soon merged into the knowledge of the Hungarians arriving into the Carpathian Basin". (Ferenc Gyulai). Hungarians also had specific knowledge about rearing bees.

Hungarians arrived with Asian "taki" or Przewalski's horses (Equus przewalskii) and so-called "Achal Teke" horses ("achal tekini"), and the associated equestrian culture (the Central Asian wooden saddle, iron stirrup, and curb). The civilized world adopted the science of riding from the Hungarians' ancestors: the stirrup, saddle, and spur, the dirigible coach and the light horse.

After much discussion, Hungarian researchers (notably János Matolcsi) determined that the "arm-horned Hungarian grey ox (even if not in its present form) was the domestic beef of our founding ancestors" (the Hungarian grey ox was a direct descendant of the wild ox Bos primigenius). "The straight twirled horned sheep came along with our ancestors and stayed until today" (Béla Hankó).

Nothing seems to show evidence of a settled herding culture better than the fact that the Hungarians' ancestors also brought pigs (the ancestor of the salonta pig) along with them into the Carpathian Basin. The dogs brought by Hungarians - the Tibet dog, the shepherd dog from the Tarim Basin, the puli, the two guard dogs - the komondor and the kuvasz - and the hunting dogs, the Hungarian greyhound and the pannon foxhound, are of non-European origin. The Central Asian two-humped camel (Camelus bactrianus) was still living in the Carpathian Basin in the 12th century.

[edit] Ethnography

[edit] Family structure

Magyars arrived in the Carpathian basin bringing their identifiably Central Asian family-based political structure with them. The 10th century monarchs Géza and St. Stephen later found it impractical to stay within this Asian structure, adopting instead a more European model of statehood.

The basic concepts of the family, or nuclear family (6-10 persons) the extended family (25-30 persons), and the "stem" (1000-2000 people on average) were able to be brought forward from the ancient structure during the incorporation of towns. The tribal unit (40-50 stems; 50,000 people on average) disappeared, having achieved the specific goals that had caused these tribal units to become allied with one another under the leadership of the headman.

One such goal was the recapture of the new country in the Carpathian Basin, the old empire of Attila, where the alliance was solemnized by the blood covenant. The structure of Hungarian society can be perceived as an exact reflection of the Central Asian Turkic model (the suit, "carrying away of girls", introduction to the parents, birth practices, etc.). The family structure and farming of today was developed in a unique form on homesteads in Europe. Far from the "equestrian nomadic" way of life typically conceived of as degrading, the Magyars clung to their stockherding equestrian way of life, a geographically mobile society, the basic quest for necessities and the ability of rapid relocation, to a great extent for a long time.

[edit] Toys

Katalin Lázár in the 1990s was able to collect over 300 Hungarian folk toys. One of the reasons ancient Hungarian folk toys have endured is that over half of them are vocalic or rhythmic; uniquely Hungarian.

The children of equestrian tribes had no "ready-made" toys. They had to produce them on their own using flowers, sunflower-stalk, head, acorn, conker, reed, peach stone, sheep bone, and especially felt. These toys are the bone foals, sledges, tossing woods, felt balls and felt puppets. Analogous toys have also been found in ancient Central Asian graves (e.g. Tarlyktag).

[edit] Cuisine

Describing ancient Hungarian cuisine, Pál Kövi wrote: "Treasure like the folk music and the folkdance, a unique cultural treasure resides in gastronomy. This treasury must be revealed, we have to sink into its depth, since the more we get to the bottom of it, the more we get to the heights of knowledge and spirit."

Hungarian cuisine of the age of settlement cannot be directly compared to Western European cuisine at the time, as its philosophy was completely different -- gastronomically speaking. Hungarian cuisine is characterized firstly by cooking, having a significant touch of the flavour of Turkic and other eastern cuisines. As frying is used more in the West, cooking is used more in the East; and this is a basic difference in culinary styles.

The cuisine of ancient Hungarians used to be characterized by the pentathony of tastes; taking the strong as a separate taste to the sweet, sour, salty, bitter; aspiring to the harmony of them, just as the Central Asian nations do. "In the sphere of gastronomy, traditions can be found going back to the age of Settlement, and even older and more east..." (Robert Gyula Cey-Bert). The recipes for goulash can be found among the descriptions of certain sacrificial foods (keng, ta-keng) by Chinese authors. The pastes, the soups, the tradition of canning meats by curing, the fermentation of milk, and the still-practised cooking techniques that differ from those of any other European nation, were all brought from the East.

[edit] Metallurgy

The Hungarian ancestors' metallurgy surpassed any other professions, and was completely different from the European form, since its bases were not different kind of minerals (like pyrite), but the limonite, whereof by damascening and multiple folding were created the only light (500 g.) samurai swords, sabres, often mentioned by authors as being in demand; war-axes, spears, spontoons, kopja (spear / pike), clubs, hoes, and spades.

Hungarian goldsmiths used Central Asian motifs and techniques, and their jewels were famed far away. No other European nations made horse-hair jewels. The bowmasters made the Central Asian type reflex-bows, first reconstructed from grave artifacts by Gyula Fábián, and still counted among the best. For the bows, the Hungarians' ancestors made arrows with specifically Central Asian arrowheads, storing them in artistically decorated quivers. The "Eastern" tactics of the Hungarians' ancestors were described in detail in the writing by emperor Leo the Wise entitled "Tactics".

[edit] Apparel

The civilized world of today no longer wears the chitons of the ancient Greeks and Romans nor the leather stapled separates of Germans, but the modern suit, brought by Magyars into Europe: the Kazak and pants made from fine lenvászon or kendervászon, the three-quarter heeled shoe, the caftan (greatcoat of today), that was formerly not the accoutrement of European culture.

There are plenty of written sources about the ancient Magyars' clothing. Gardhezi, Jayhani tradition, Istakr, emperor Leo the Wise, Pope Sylvester II, etc. all emphasized the ancient Magyars' "spiffiness". There weren't many differences between the clothes of men and women in Central Asian traditions. Hungarian women wore pants until the end of the 13th century.

Menswear was the caftan, hussar pelisse, mantle, sheepskin waistcoat, szokmány (tightly fitting short coat of peasant attire), szűr (long embroidered cloak of the Hungarian shepherd), guba (coat made of course knotted cloth), sheepskin, backskin, sheepskin jacket, busby, boots, heeled shoe (not the European sandal or shoe), and the studded belt with hanging knife, decorated bag (tarsoly) and bow.

Women's wear was based on finer material than menswear. The shirt was made from fine material (pendely) that was stitched on both sides and tied at the waist. Women also wore three-quarter (and slimmed in the waist) Kazak, low uppered soft boots, coronet and many jewels, plait trappings (breast disc), pearls, earrings, necklets, armlets, rings, leg- and armbands. The authors emphasize the "elegant" and "always clean" clothes of the plebs while the rich used a lot of silk, brocade and velvet in their clothes.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Tóth, Sándor László (1998). Levediától a Kárpát-medencéig ("From Levedia to the Carpathian Basin"). Szeged: Szegedi Középkorász Műhely, 30. ISBN 963 482 175 8. 
  2. ^ Comparison of mtdna haplogroups in Hungarians with four other European populations: a small incidence of descents with Asian origin., <http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2007/06/mtdna-of-hungarians.html>. Retrieved on 29 December 2007 
  3. ^ Róna-Tas, András, Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, p. 110 

[edit] References

  • Róna-Tas, Ándras (1996). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History. CEU Press. ISBN 9639116483. 

[edit] See also

Languages