Avars and pseudo-Avars
The earliest clear reference to the Avar ethnonym comes from Priscus the Rhetor (420s–after 472), who recounts that in c. 463 the 展开

Arrival in Europe
In 557, the Avars sent an embassy to Constantinople, presumably from the northern Caucasus. This marked their first contact with the 展开

The Pannonian Basin was the centre of the Avar power base. The Avars resettled captives from the peripheries of their empire to more central … 展开

The Avars were skilled warriors and almost exclusively fought on horseback. They often used light horse archers armed with powerful composite bows, as many other steppe peoples. … 展开

The recorded Avar khagans were:
• Shaush (? – c. 552)
• Kandik (c. 552 – c. 562)
• Bayan I 展开

The language or languages spoken by the Avars are unknown. Classical philologist Samu Szádeczky-Kardoss states that most of the Avar words used in contemporaneous Latin or Greek texts appear to have their origins in possibly Mongolian or 展开

Gyula László suggests that late Avars, arriving to the khaganate in 670 in great numbers, lived through the time between the destruction and plunder of the Avar state by the Franks during 791–795 and the arrival of the Magyars in 895. László points out that the … 展开