Dardanoi

The Dardanoi (Greek: Δάρδανοι; its anglicized modern terms being Dardanians or Dardans) in classical writings were either the same people as, or a people closely related to, the Trojans, an ancient people of the Troad, located in northwestern Anatolia. The Dardanoi derived their name from Dardanus, the mythical founder of Dardania, an ancient city in the Troad. Rule of the Troad was divided between Dardania and Troy. Homer makes a clear distinction between the Trojans and the Dardanoi.

The Royal House of Troy was also divided into two branches, that of the Dardanoi, and that of the Trojans (their city being called Troy, or sometimes Ilion/Ilium). The House of the Dardanoi (its members being the Dardanides, Greek: "Δαρδανίδες") was older than the House of Troy, but Troy later became more powerful. Aeneas is referred to in Virgil's Aeneid interchangeably as a Dardanian or as a Trojan, but strictly speaking, Aeneas was of the branch of the Dardanoi. Many rulers of Rome claimed descent from Aeneas and the Houses of Troy and Dardania. Homer adds the epithet Dardanidi (Δαρδανίδη) to Priam and to other prominent characters denoting that they are members of the house of the Dardanoi.

Homer writes;

The Dardanians were led by brave Aeneas, whom the fair Aphrodite, a goddess bedded with a mortal man, bore to Anchises in the mountains of Ida. He was not alone, for with him were the two sons of Antenor, Archilochus and Acamas, both skilled in all the arts of war.

The strait of the Dardanelles was named after the Dardanoi, who lived in the region.

The ethnic affinities of the Dardanoi, and of the Trojans, and the nature of their language remain a mystery. The remains of their material culture reveal close ties with Luwian other Anatolian groups, Thracians and Greek contact. Homer writes the elite was mixed but predominantly Greek and the Romans considered them to be Greek as a whole. Archaeological finds from the Troad dating back to the Chalcolithic period show striking affinity to archaeological finds known from the same era in Muntenia and Moldavia, and there are other traces which suggest close ties between the Troad and the Carpatho-Balkan region of Europe. Archaeologists in fact have stated that the styles of certain ceramic objects and bone figurines show that these objects were brought into the Troad by Carpatho-Danubian colonists; for example, certain ceramic objects have been shown to have Cucuteni origins.

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