Editing Huns (section)

===Swords and other weapons===
[[File:02019 0566 (2) Spatha of Jakuszowice.jpg|thumb|A spatha buried in a Hun-period grave with a nomadic background from Jakuszowice in modern Poland.{{sfn|Rodzińska-Nowak|2020|p=379}}]]
Ammianus reports that the Huns used iron swords,{{sfn|Thompson|1996|p=59}} and ceremonial swords, daggers, and decorated scabbards are frequent finds in Hun-period burials.{{sfn|Kazanski|2013|p=513}} Additionally, [[pearl]]s are often found with swords; these decorative elements may have had a religious meaning.{{sfn|Anke|2010|pp=518-519}} Beginning with Joachim Werner, archaeologists have argued that the Huns may have originated the fashion of decorating swords with [[cloisonné]];{{sfn|Kim|2015|p=170}} 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.{{sfn|von Rummel|2007|pp=346-348}}

Thompson is skeptical that the Huns could cast iron themselves,{{sfn|Thompson|1996|p=59}} but Maenchen-Helfen argues that "[t]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."{{sfn|Maenchen-Helfen|1973|p=12}} One characteristic sword used by the Huns and their subject peoples was the narrow-bladed long [[seax]].{{sfn|Rodzińska-Nowak|2020|p=396}} Since the work of J. Werner in the 1950s, many scholars have believed that the Huns introduced this type of sword to Europe.{{sfn|Kiss|2014|pp=132-133}} In the earliest versions, these swords seem to have been shorter, stabbing weapons.{{sfn|Kiss|2014|p=135}}
The Huns, along with the Alans and the Eastern Germanic peoples, also used a type of sword known as an East Germanic or Asian {{lang|la|[[spatha]]}}, a long, double-edged iron sword with an iron cross-guard.{{sfn|Rodzińska-Nowak|2020|p=379}} These swords would have been used to cut down enemies who had already been driven to flight by the Huns' volleys of arrows.{{sfn|Kazanski|2013|p=513}} Roman sources also mention [[lasso]]s as weapons used at close range to immobilize opponents.{{sfn|Heather|2005|p=157}}

Some Huns or their subject peoples may also have carried heavy [[lance]]s, as is attested for some Hunnic mercenaries in Roman sources.{{sfn|Maenchen-Helfen|1973|pp=239}}