03/25/2025
ATTILA, THE SCOURGE OF GOD (UPDATED), king of the Huns, who played a significant role in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. He is represented with East Asian traits as he was described by the Eastern Roman historian Jordanes. Only a small minority of European Huns would have such Asiatic traits (mostly the elite that were presumably related with the earlier Xiongnu of Mongolia and Siberia), because most of the Hunnic horde was a mix of different peoples they had been assimilating along the way. His skull is artificially elongated, a practice found in both male and female Hunnic graves in Europe, also practiced by other eastern Hunnic groups such as the Alchon Huns that conquered India (whose kings are always depicted with elongated heads in their coins). From the Huns, artificial skull deformation spread to the Germanic tribes, and recently, elongated skulls have even been found in Viking Age female graves in Gotland (Sweden). The Huns also practiced facial scarification and partially shaved their head in some sort of mullet. Hunnic men in Europe typically wore a single small loop earring, a practice that was also adopted by some Germanic men.
In this updated version of Attila, I replaced the skull cup of the previous version for a Sassanian glass bowl. These glass bowls with wheel-cut facets resembling a beehive were produced both in Sasanian Persia and in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and examples of such bowls have been found as far as Denmark and Japan. The rugs on the walls of the tent and the floor are based on surviving fragments of Sasanian rugs from the Al-Sabah collection, reconstructed by Bilge Bitig (on the walls), and a replica owned by Nadeem Ahmad from Eran ud Turan (on the floor).
In this new version of Attila, I also removed the golden crown from the previous version (which was based on the crown of Kerch, from Crimea), because even though Hunnic kings in Central Asia and India wore diadems and crowns (of a Sasanian style) in their coins, the Hunnic diadems or crowns found in Europe are of a different style and have only been found in female graves. We simply have no evidence of diadems or crowns being worn by Hunnic kings in Europe, although that doesn’t mean they didn’t wear them. But Attila was described as an austere-looking man, so it’s safer not to give him too much bling. Unlike their heavily Persianized counterparts of Central Asia and India, European Hunnic elite men mostly wore their wealth in the form of luxurious versions of practical objects and weapons that every man would carry (such as belts, swords, daggers, and brooches decorated with garnet encrusted gold) rather than jewelry.
The Eastern Roman historian Jordanes described Attila as follows:
“He was a man born into the world to shake the nations, the scourge of all lands, who in some way terrified all mankind by the rumors noised abroad concerning him. He was haughty in his walk, rolling his eyes hither and thither, so that the power of his proud spirit appeared in the movement of his body. He was indeed a lover of war, yet restrained in action; mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants, and lenient to those who were once received under his protection. He was short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard was thin and sprinkled with grey. He had a flat nose and a swarthy complexion, revealing his origin.”
HQ + close-ups: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/G8dO4V
The Podcast exploring the world after the fall of the Roman Empire
