Pages: 275-285 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp224275285

Jordanes’s De origine actibusque Getarum contains two episodes about the burial rite of the Huns associated with the burial of their leader Attila: his failed cremation in 451 on the Catalaunian Plains, and his inhumation in 453, somewhere in the Carpathian basin. Despite the legendary nature of this account by Jordanes, both rites find correspondences in the funerary customs of the Huns. Moreover, in the first instance on the Catalaunian Plains, we cannot exclude the action of the ritual self-sacrifice by the charismatic leader.

Keywords: Attila, Jordanes, Huns, funerary rite, cremation, inhumation

Information about author:

Michel Kazanski (Paris, France). Doctor Habilitat on Archaeology. National Center for Scientific Research, UMR–8167 “East and Mediterranean”. Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 52, Paris, 75005, France; V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University. Academician Vernadsky Ave., 4, Simferopol, 295007, Crimea
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-0306-0936