page_title: Iranian Huns
section_title: Nezak
hierarchical_section_title: Iranian Huns / Nezak
caption_attribution_description: English: Nezak Huns ruler Circa 460-560
context_page_description: The term Iranian Huns is sometimes used for a group of different tribes that lived in Afghanistan and neighboring areas between the fourth and seventh centuries and expanded into northwest India. They are roughly equivalent to the Hunas. They also threatened the northeast borders of Sasanian Persia and forced the Shahs to lead many ill-documented campaigns against them.
  The term was introduced by Robert Göbl in the 1960s and is based on his study of coins. The term "Iranian Huns" coined by Göbl has been sometimes accepted in research, especially in German academia, and reflects how some of the namings and inscriptions of the Kidarites and Hephthalites used an Iranic language, and the bulk of the population they ruled was Iranian. Their origin is controversially discussed. While Göbl describes four groups, recent research sometimes describes the Xionites as a fifth group. In recent research, it is debated whether the new arrivals came as one wave or several waves of different peoples.
  The term "Iranian Huns" is not commonly used in English sources outside of the Encyclopædia Iranica. "Hun" is used in the broad sense and these people may have been partly non-Iranian.
context_section_description: Göbl’s third wave were the Nezak Huns who settled around Kabul. Early scholars called them 'Napki'. The exact chronology is unclear. The first written accounts come from the early seventh century. Some place their foundation in the late sixth century after the fall of the Hephthalites. The coins imply a foundation in the late fifth century.
  If we accept the early dating they were under pressure from the Hephthalites, but by the later dating they profited from the Hephthalite collapse.
  Their coins are strongly based on Sassanid models but are clearly recognizable by their distinctive bulls-head crowns which allow the coins to be divided into types. It seems that returning Alkhon groups met the Nizaks and produced an Alkhon-Nizak mixed language.
  It is certain that they expanded to Gandhara and minted coins there. Chinese sources from the early seventh century prove that their capital was Kapisa. Their remnants south of the Hindu Kush seem to have been destroyed by the Arab conquest in the late seventh century.
caption: Nezak Huns ruler, circa 460-560 CE.
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