Alchon Huns
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The Alchon Huns, also known as the Alkhan, Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, 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.
Alchon Huns
The word "Alchono" (αλχοννο) in Greek (Greco-Bactrian cursive script), on a coin of Khingila.
Portrait of an older King Khingila, founder of the Alchon Huns, on one of his coins, c. 430 – 490 CE.
The silver bowl in the British Museum
Bactrian language
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Bactrian is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires.
Bactrian language
The Rabatak inscription is an inscription written on a rock in the Bactrian language and the Greek script, which was found in 1993 at the site of Rabatak, near Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan. The inscription relates to the rule of the Kushan emperor Kanishka, and gives remarkable clues on the genealogy of the Kushan dynasty.
The Surkh Kotal inscription (SK4) is the first known substantial document written in Bactrian, an Iranian language. It uses the Greek script. It was written at the time of the Kushan ruler Huvishka, 2nd century CE. Kabul Museum.
The Hephthalites used the Bactrian script (top). Here, their endonym Ebodalo (ηβοδαλο), "Hephthalites".