linguistic:translation
Swords and other weapons

Ammianus reports that the Huns used iron swords, and ceremonial swords, daggers, and decorated scabbards are frequent finds in Hun-period burials. Additionally, pearls are often found with swords; these decorative elements may have had a religious meaning. Beginning with Joachim Werner, archaeologists have argued that the Huns may have originated the fashion of decorating swords with cloisonné; however, Philip von Rummel argues these swords show strong Mediterranean influence, are rare in the Carpathian Basin from the Hun period, and may have been produced by Byzantine workshops.

Thompson is skeptical that the Huns could cast iron themselves, but Maenchen-Helfen argues that "he idea that the Hun horsemen fought their way to the walls of Constantinople and to the Marne with bartered and captured swords is absurd." One characteristic sword used by the Huns and their subject peoples was the narrow-bladed long seax. Since the work of J. Werner in the 1950s, many scholars have believed that the Huns introduced this type of sword to Europe. In the earliest versions, these swords seem to have been shorter, stabbing weapons. The Huns, along with the Alans and the Eastern Germanic peoples, also used a type of sword known as an East Germanic or Asian spatha, a long, double-edged iron sword with an iron cross-guard. These swords would have been used to cut down enemies who had already been driven to flight by the Huns' volleys of arrows. Roman sources also mention lassos as weapons used at close range to immobilize opponents.

Some Huns or their subject peoples may also have carried heavy lances, as is attested for some Hunnic mercenaries in Roman sources.