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'Albanoi' (Albanian: ''Albanët'') were an Illyrian tribe who lived in what is now central Albania, near the present-day city of ''Kruja''. They gave to the modern Albanian nation its name Albanoi also had their city named Albanopolis.
The first known occurrence of the word Albanoi as the name of an Illyrian
tribe in what is now north-central Albania goes back to 130 AD, in a work of
Ptolemy. Albanopolis of the Albani is a place located on the map of Ptolemy
and also named on an ancient family epitaph at Scupi (near Skopje) , which
has been identified with the Zgardhesh hill-fort near Kruja in northern
Albania. Arbanon is likely to be the name of a district - the plain of the
Mat has been suggested - rather than a particular place. An indication of
movement from higher altitudes in a much earlier period has been detected in
the distribution of place-names ending in -esh that appears to derive from
the Latin -enisis or -esis, between the Shkumbin and the Mat rivers, with a
concentration between Elbasan and Kruja.
The earliest mentioning is in the 200 Anno Domini - 4 centuries before the
arrival of the Serbs. They are mentioned as Albanoi, which is thought to
mean 'white' - ironically, the Illyrian name for the tribe was parthini, and
the first part -parth resembles Albanian modern word -bardh, meaning precisely
white, whereas the suffix -ini resembles our suffix -inj, defining the word
as smth plural, i.e. Parthians, Parthinj

Contents

References

See also

References

★ In the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder mentions an Illyrian tribe named Olbonenses.

★ In the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer from Alexandria, drafted a map of remarkable significance for the history of Illyria. This map shows the city of Albanopolis (located south of Durrës). Ptolemy also mentions the Illyrian tribe named Albanoi, who lived around this city.

See also

★ List of Illyrian tribes