Albanoi
The Albanoi (
In the Middle Ages, the names Albanoi and Arbanitai/Albanitai referred to medieval Albanians as an ethnic group. The equivalent terms in Latin are Albanenses/Arbanenses, in Slavic Arbanasi and later in Turkish Arnaut. These names reflect the Albanian ethnic endonym Arbëreshë/Arbëneshë, which itself derives from Albanoi. In the archaeological record, the Albanoi are mentioned on a funeral inscription in Stobi and Albanopolis is mentioned on another funeral inscription near Scupi. Another ethnonym, Arbaios found in Phoenice is likely linked to them.
Name
The Albanoi were possibly first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus (550-476 BCE) under the name Abroi, who lived around the same area. Abroi may have been produced via a metathesis of Arboi, another linguistic process or a common misassociation by Hecataeus of the indigenous name with the ancient Greek term abros to better adapt it to Greek.[1] Ptolemy (100–170 CE) is the first author who mentions them under the name Albanoi.
The name of this Illyrian tribe – Abroi/Arboi and Albanoi – gave rise to the ethnonym
Ancient and medieval literature
The Albanoi may have likely first appeared under the name
John of Nikiû (7th century), a Coptic bishop mentions in the French translation of a manuscript titled Chronicle that barbarians, foreign peoples and Illyrians, ravaged the cities of the Christians and took the inhabitants alive in the Byzantine Empire. Hermann Zotenberg who translated the Chronicle from Geʽez to French rendered with the term Illyrians, a term which in the original manuscript corresponded to Alwerikon. Alwerikon in the Byzantine Greek translation of the Chronicle corresponded to the term Albani(k/t)on (genitive of Albanitai). Constantine Sathas (1842-1912) who first recorded the discrepancy between different translations considered the mention of Alwerikon an attestation of the same population as the Illyrian Albanoi.[11]
Archaeology
In the archaeological record, the Albanoi and Albanopolis have been directly attested on two funeral inscriptions. The toponym Albanopolis has been found on a funeral inscription in Gorno Sonje, near the city of Skopje (ancient Scupi), present-day North Macedonia.[17] It was excavated in 1931 by Nikola Vulić and its text was curated and published in 1982 by Borka Dragojević-Josifovska. The inscription in Latin reads:[18]
POSIS MESTYLU F[ILIUS] FL[AVIA] DELVS MVCATI F[ILIA] DOM[O] ALBANOP[OLI] IPSA DELVS |
Posis Mestylu, son of Flavia Delus, daughter of Mucatus, who comes from Albanopolis |
It dates to the end of the 1st century CE and the beginning of the 2nd century CE. Dragojević-Josifovska added two lines to the existing reading: VIVA P(OSUIT) SIBI/ ET VIRO SUO. Like others, he presumably had settled in Scupi from Albanopolis.
The site of
The ethnonym Albanos was found on a funeral inscription of the 2nd/3rd century CE from ancient Stobi, near Gradsko about 90 km to the southeast of Gorno Sonje. The inscription in ancient Greek reads:[23]
ΦΛ(ΑΒΙΩ) ΑΛΒΑΝΩ ΤΩ ΤΕΚΝΩ ΑΙΜΙΛΙΑΝΟΣ ΑΛΒΑΝΟ(Σ) ΜΝΗΜ(Η)Σ [ΧΑΡΗΝ] |
In memory of Flavios Albanos, his son Aemilianos Albanos |
An inscription in ancient Greek in Phoenice, southern Albania related to the liberation act of the slave Nikarchos Nikomachou Arbaios is linked to the Albanoi as Arbaios is an ethnonym which has the same root as that of the Albanoi and hasn't been attested anywhere else.[24] Arbaios is considered to not have been a local of the city of Phoenice, but someone who had been moved there from more northern areas in central Albania.[25] The inscription was excavated in the 1920s by Luigi Ugolini. It dates to the 3rd/2nd century BCE.[4]
See also
- List of Illyrian peoples and tribes
- Origin of Albanians
- Names of the Albanians and Albania
References
- ^ Plasari 2020, pp. 10–11.
- ^ a b Demiraj 2020, p. 33.
- ^ a b Campbell 2009, p. 120.
- ^ a b c Plasari 2020, pp. 10–11
- ^ Wilkes 1996, p. 98.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 22.
- ^ Winnifrith 2021, p. 70.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 15.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 18.
- ^ Wilkes 1996, p. 279.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 27.
- ^ a b Plasari 2020, p. 41
- ^ Quanrud 2021, p. 1.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 43.
- ^ Baltsiotis 2018, p. 101.
- ^ Demiraj 2015, p. 481.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 16.
- ^ a b Dragojević-Josifovska 1982, p. 32.
- ^ Babamova 2008, pp. 91–92.
- ^ Wilkes 1996, p. 135.
- ^ Donev 2018, p. 35.
- ^ Donev 2018, p. 28.
- ^ Spasovska-Dimitrioska 2000, p. 258.
- ^ Cabanes 1974, p. 572.
- ^ Plasari 2020, p. 12.
Sources
- Babamova, Slavica (2008). "Personal names on the territory of Paeonia in the Roman period". Živa Antika / Antiquité Vivante. 58 (1–2): 87–96. ISSN 0514-7727.
- Baltsiotis, Lambros (2018). "Greeks and Albanians in the 19th and 20th centuries: Consecutive and reversed perceptions". Synchrona Themata (in Greek). 2018/2019 (143–144).
- Biçoku, Kasëm (1992). "Les regions ethniques Albanaises au Moyen Age et la propagation du nom national "Arber"". Studia Albanica. XXIX: 01/02.
- Cabanes, Pierre (1974). L'Epire: de la mort de Pyrrhos à la conquête romaine (272-167) (in French). Paris: Annales Littéraires de l'Université de Besancon.
- Campbell, Duncan R. J. (2009). The so-called Galatae, Celts, and Gauls in the Early Hellenistic Balkans and the Attack on Delphi in 280–279 BC (Thesis). University of Leicester.
- Demiraj, Shaban (2015). "Albanian". In Giacalone Ramat, Anna (ed.). The Indo-European Languages. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134921874.
- ISSN 0585-5047.
- Donev, Damjan (2018). "Aspects of Roman Urbanization in the Hellenistic Balkans". In Willet, Rinse (ed.). The Economics of Urbanism in the Roman East (PDF). Propylaeum. ISBN 978-3-947450-96-1.
- Dragojević-Josifovska, Borka (1982). Inscriptions de la Mésie supérieure, Scupi et la région de Kumanovo. Centre d'études épigraphiques et numismatiques de la Faculté de philosophie de l'Université de Beograd. ISBN 8680269166.
- Plasari, Aurel (2020). "The Albanians in attestations from late antiquity until the early Middle Ages". Albanian Studies. 2. Academy of Sciences of Albania.
- Quanrud, John (2021). "The Albanoi in Michael Attaleiates' History: revisiting the Vranoussi-Ducellier debate". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 45 (2): 149–165. S2CID 237424879.
- Spasovska-Dimitrioska, Gordana (2000). Chaniotis, Angelos (ed.). Supplementum epigraphicum graecum. J.C. Gieben. ISBN 9789050632287.
- Wilkes, John (1996) [1992]. The Illyrians. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-631-19807-9.
- Winnifrith, Tom (2021). Nobody's Kingdom: A History of Northern Albania. Signal Books. ISBN 9781909930957.