Dulo clan

The Dulo clan was the ruling dynasty of the Bulgars. The origins of the Bulgars and Dulo clan are not known precisely, there are many theories about their origin. It is generally considered that the origin of the Dulo clan and Bulgars, or at least of the elite caste, is intimately related to the origin and activity of the Huns and Western Turks.

The royal family and rulers of the Old Great Bulgaria (632–668) and first half of the First Bulgarian Empire (681–1018), in their prince list (Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans) claimed through Irnik, which was probably related or the Attila's son Ernak itself, Attilid descent.

The most what is known about the clan is written in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans. The Nominalia lists as the first ruler mythical Avitohol, who lived 300 years and descended from the Dulo clan. Josef Marquart and many other historians identified Avitohol with Attila the Hun.Steven Runciman considered the connection possible, but suspicious and unimportant if the link between Irnik-Ernak is confirmed. Runciman considered the name Avitohol meaningless and its biblical origin more convincing. He considered that the missionaries were spreading Old Testament stories around the Eurasian Steppes, as well the story of Japheth, the ancestor of Eurasian people, which easily modifies into the Latin name Avitus (ancestral; grandfather) and Turkish Awit (ancestor) it derives from. Runciman considered Avitohol to be a distant mythological ancestor. Ivan Biliarsky considers that both Avitohol and Irnik were only mythic figures of the historical personalities. According to him the Nominalia shows that the clan memory and genealogy important to Central Asian peoples was likewise significant to the Bulgars, as well the cosmological understanding of the history, as the Avitohol and Irnik were mentioned in the category of the creator and founder, the mythological divine ancestor-creator represented in the reincarnation of the cultural hero within time cycles. Jean W Sedlar considered the Attila connection justly doubtful, and argued the possibility of a steppe dynasty which produced Hunnic rulers like Attila may have also produced rulers for the Bulgars.

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