Albani (Illyrian tribe)

Albanoi (Ancient Greek: Ἀλβανοί, tr. Alvanoí; Albanian: Albanët) or Albani were an Illyrian tribe whose first historical account appears in a work of Ptolemy in addition to a town called Albanopolis (Ἀλβανόπολις) located east of the Ionian sea, in modern-day Albania. Ptolemy's mention in 150 AD places them in the Roman province of Macedon, specifically in Epirus Nova, almost 300 years after the Roman conquest of the region. Ptolemy himself makes no hint of their true ethnic identification, and he does not clarify whether the citizens of Albanopolis were Illyrians, Macedonians or Thracians, all of which are distinct possibilities. However from the names of places with which Albanopolis is connected, it appears clearly to have been in the southern part of the Illyrian territory, and in the center of modern Albania, an area inhabited by the Illyrians at the time.

It is believed that they are related to the modern nation of the Albanians. While it has been identified with the Zgërdhesh hill-fort near Kruja in northern Albania, scholars believe the Illyrian settlement here seems to have been founded in the 7th or 6th century BC and flourished in the 4th and 3rd centuries, before being abandoned in the 2nd century BC, when the inhabitants moved to Durrës and Lezha.

The first mention of Albanopolis in an inscription is on an ancient funerary stele at Scupi (near modern Skopje).

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