Kama Tarkhan was a legendary ancestor-king of the Altyn Oba Horde located on the steppes to the north of the Black Sea.

When Jin Zhun

Jin Zhun

Jin Zhun was an official of the Chinese/Xiongnu state Han Zhao, who in 318 staged a coup against the Han Zhao emperor and his son-in-law Liu Can and then massacred the imperial Liu family. His forces were subsequently squeezed in by the succeeding emperor Liu Yao and the general Shi Le, and,...

 overthrew Liu Can

Liu Can

Liu Can , courtesy name Shiguang , Posthumous name Emperor Yin of Han , was an emperor of the Chinese/Xiongnu state Han Zhao, who reigned briefly in 318 before being killed by his trusted father-in-law Jin Zhun.-As Prince of He'nei and then Prince of Jin:Liu Can was Liu Cong's son by his first...

, many of the Hunnish tribes around Pingyang (平陽, in modern Linfen

Linfen

-Administrative divisions:The prefecture-level city of Linfen is divided in one district, two cities and fourteen counties. The information here presented uses the metric system and data from 2010 Census.-Pollution:...

, Shanxi

Shanxi

' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....

) fled west along the Silk Road

Silk Road

The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...

 appearing in Transoxiana

Transoxiana

Transoxiana is the ancient name used for the portion of Central Asia corresponding approximately with modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, southern Kyrgystan and southwest Kazakhstan. Geographically, it is the region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers...

 as the Chionites around 320 AD. However there is no one in the Liu family whose name sounds like "Kama Tarkhan". If Kama Tarkhan was of this same group, then he would have been related to Kidara of the Ki clan (of Yuezhi

Yuezhi

The Yuezhi, or Rouzhi , also known as the Da Yuezhi or Da Rouzhi , were an ancient Central Asian people....

 ethnicity), who led a Bactrian portion of Chionites to overthrow the Kushans in India. In this case he might have been the Chionite king Grumbat mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus and included in the Kidara dynastic list of the Chionite Ki clan. The journey of the Ki clan from Bactria to the Ukrainian and Danubian plains is recorded in various myths about the origins of the European Huns recorded in the Kiev Chronicles, and by Bar Hebraeus, as well as in the Chronicle of the late 12th century Jacobite patriarch of Antioch Michael the Syrian. However, this is 2 centuries later than the alleged date for Kama Tarkhan.

If they were related to the Chionites, Kidarites

Kidarites

The Kidarite were a dynasty of the "Ki" clan, probably originating from the Uar people. They were part of the complex of tribes known collectively as Xionites or "Hunas"....

, Alchon, and Hunas, Kama Tarkhan's "Huns

Huns

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

" would have had to have gone west, to the Black Desert

Karakum Desert

The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara-Kum and Gara Gum is a desert in Central Asia. It occupies about 70 percent, or 350,000 km², of the area of Turkmenistan....

 and ultimately to the Black Sea Steppes. However the so-called "Huns" remaining in the Red Desert

Kyzyl Kum

The Kyzyl Kum , also called Qyzylqum, is the 11th largest desert in the world. Its name means Red Sand in Turkic languages. It is located in Central Asia in the doab between the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya, and is divided between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan...

 eventually united with the Uar

Uar

The Uar were the largest of three ethnic components constituting the confederation known to the west as the Hephthalites and to the Chinese as Yanda and the dominant ethnicity of Khwarezm...

 in 460 AD and established the Hephthalite empire under which they flourished untoil the mid 6th century AD.

An alternative identification would be that he was the chief who led the Huns to appear in the west near the Caspian sea, according to Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

 at the turn of the 1st century AD, in retreat from the mad campaign of Ban Chao

Ban Chao

Ban Chao , courtesy name Zhongsheng , was born in Xianyang, Shaanxi, and the younger brother of the famous historian, Ban Gu who, with his father Ban Biao, and sister, Ban Zhao, wrote the famous Hanshu, or 'History of the Former Han Dynasty'....

 (班超) against the Xiongnu

Xiongnu

The Xiongnu were ancient nomadic-based people that formed a state or confederation north of the agriculture-based empire of the Han Dynasty. Most of the information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources...

.

Sources

• V.Zlatarski, Izvestieto na Mihail Sirijski za preselenieto na bylgarite. – V: Izbrani proizvedenija, I., S., 1972, s.52