page_title: Alchon Huns
section_title: Retreat to Kabulistan
hierarchical_section_title: Alchon Huns / History / Retreat to Kabulistan
caption_attribution_description: English: Alkhan-Nezak Crossover coin circa 580/90 to 650/80. Æ Hemidrachm (23mm, 3.10 g, 1h). Nezak style bust right; conch and pseudo-legend to right; all within double border; stars-in-crescents in margin / Alkhan tamgha (type S1) within double border; stars-in-crescents in margin.
context_page_description: The Alchon Huns, also known as the Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alkhan, Alakhana and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. They were first mentioned as being located in Paropamisus, and later expanded south-east, into the Punjab and central India, as far as Eran and Kausambi. The Alchon invasion of the Indian subcontinent eradicated the Kidarite Huns who had preceded them by about a century, and contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire, in a sense bringing an end to Classical India.
  The invasion of India by the Huna peoples follows invasions of the subcontinent in the preceding centuries by the Yavana, the Saka, the Palava, and the Kushana. The Alchon Empire was the third of four major Huna states established in Central and South Asia. The Alchon were preceded by the Kidarites and the Hephthalites, and succeeded by the Nezak Huns. The names of the Alchon kings are known from their extensive coinage, Buddhist accounts, and a number of commemorative inscriptions throughout the Indian subcontinent.
context_section_description: Around the end of the 6th century CE, the Alchons withdrew to Kashmir and, pulling back from Punjab and Gandhara, moved west across the Khyber pass where they resettled in Kabulistan. There, their coinage suggests that they merged with the Nezak – as coins in Nezak style now bear the Alchon tamga mark.
  During the 7th century, continued military encounters are reported between the Hunas and the northern Indian states which followed the disappearance of the Gupta Empire. For example, Prabhakaravardhana, the Vardhana dynasty king of Thanesar in northern India and father of Harsha, is reported to have been "A lion to the Huna deer, a burning fever to the king of the Indus land".
  The Alchons in India declined rapidly around the same time that the Hephthalites, a related group to the north, were defeated by an alliance between the Sassanians and the Western Turkic Kaghanate. Eventually, the Nezak-Alchons were replaced by the Turk shahi dynasty.
caption: Alchon-Nezak "crossover coinage", 580–680. Nezak-style bust on the obverse, and Alchon tamga Alchon Tamga.png within double border on the reverse.[78]
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