FINNO-UGRIC WARRIOR (UDMURT), from the time of the Hunnic Empire (4th - 5th centuries AD). Most European languages we know today (like the Romance, Germanic, Celtic and Slavic subfamilies, and the Greek language) belong to the Indo-European family, together with other languages mostly spoken in Iran and India (which form the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages). But there are some exceptions to this otherwise homogeneously Indo-European Europe. These exceptions are Pre-Indo-European isolates like Basque and some extinct ancient languages like Iberian and Etruscan, but also the languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric family (examples of this linguistic family in Europe are the Finnish, Sami, and Hungarian languages). Finno-Ugric peoples today live scattered between north-eastern Europe and north-western Asia. This illustration represents a Finno-Ugric warrior from the Ural Mountains, the natural barrier between Europe and Siberia, a region that came under the rule of the Huns during the Migration Period. The poorly made helmet is based on a find from the Tarasovo Burial Ground (replica made by Dima Hramstov). The sword is based on a find from the Turaevsky Burial Ground. This sword is a rare find, because it was not made in the Urals, but somewhere in or around Sasanian Persia. Similar swords are also represented in the hands of Hephthalite Hunnic warriors in a silver bowl found in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, in the former region of Gandhara, and other swords with this type of pommel are known in the European Hunnic and Alanic contexts (see my illustration of an Alan warrior for example), apart from finds from the Sasanian Empire itself. The quiver has a painted deer in the “Permian animal style”, which was a Late Antique and Medieval Finno-Ugric art style heavily influenced by the much earlier Scythian animal style. As for the shield, since no metal shield bosses have been found as far east (and are mostly associated with the Germanic context), a fully organic hypothetical option has been considered, inspired by a find of a Sogdian shield from Mount Mugh (Tajikistan), which had two straps rivetted to a round wooden shield without central boss.