Archive for June, 2010
Jun
“The Pelasgi would have formed the pre-historical population of Epirus, Macedonia, Illyria, Greece, the Peloponnese and large Italian territories. In Greece, the Pelasgi would have adopted the Hellenic language, when the Hellenix population came to dominate the Pelasgic one, while the native language would have lasted unitl both the Bulgarian invasion of Macedonia and the Serbian invasion of Illyria. In Albania, southern Illyria and Epirus, the Pelasgic population resisted assimilation by the Slavic population. Since the fourtheenth centry the Epirus colonies of modern Greece have sprung from these to little studied countries.Hence there was reverse re-run of the invasion of the first ages, with the difference that the native Pelasgi had mixed with invading Hellenes and the nowadays the new Pelasgi established in Greece are becoming more and more Hellenic. According to the author of Albanian Studies, there would now be Albanians in all the Hellenic provinces, be they in continental Greece, or the Peloponnesian peninsula, with the exception of Aetolia, Akarnia, Lakonia and Messene. In Attica, Megarid, Argolid and Boeotia, they made up the vast majority of the population.
Finally, the islands of Hydra, Spetses, Poros and Salamis, southern Euboeia and the northern part of the island of Andros would be inhabited entirely by Albanians. Moreover, if Mr. Hahn thinks that the ancient Pelasgi and Hellenes were different peoples, he insists on showing numerous ties of kinship which link them: ‘The proto-Albanian is not only a contemporary of the proto-Roman and Greek, but there is an affinity between them, or, in other words, what the three peoples share in terms of their customs comes from a common component, the Pelasgic component”. Theodor Mommsen views “the common origin” of the Albanian, Hellenic and Italian races as an incontrovertible fact. [...].
“The Pelasgi would have formed the pre-historical population of Epirus, Macedonia, Illyria, Greece, the Peloponnese and large Italian territories. In Greece, the Pelasgi would have adopted the Hellenic language, when the Hellenic population came to dominate the Pelasgic one, while the native language would have lasted until both the Bulgarian invasion of Macedonia and the Serbian invasion of Illyria. In Albania, southern Illyria and Epirus, the Pelasgic population resisted assimilation by the Slavic population.
Jun
Albania
THE ANCIENT ILLYRIANS
Source: Based on information from R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History, New York, 1970, 95; Herman Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History, 1, New York, 1974, 90, 94; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15, New York, 1975, 1092.
Mystery enshrouds the exact origins of today’s Albanians. Most historians of the Balkans believe the Albanian people are in large part descendants of the ancient Illyrians, who, like other Balkan peoples, were subdivided into tribes and clans. The name Albania is derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Arber, or Arbereshë, and later Albanoi, that lived near Durrës. The Illyrians were Indo-European tribesmen who appeared in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula about 1000 B.C., a period coinciding with the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age. They inhabited much of the area for at least the next millennium. Archaeologists associate the Illyrians with the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age people noted for production of iron and bronze swords with winged-shaped handles and for domestication of horses. The Illyrians occupied lands extending from the Danube, Sava, and Morava rivers to the Adriatic Sea and the Sar Mountains. At various times, groups of Illyrians migrated over land and sea into Italy.
Jun
“The Macedonians, who seized on the district anciently called Emathia, were, in all probability, of Illyrian origin“
(~A manual of the political antiquities of Greece, historically considered~ By Carl Friedrich Hermann, 1836, pg.32)
Illyrians as Dorians
Carleton S. Coon found a connection between the Illyrians and the Dorians based on his anthropological analyses of the Albanian and Montenegrin population as well as the Sfakian population in Crete. Coon discovered that Montenegro and Albania is highly concentrated Illyrian racial zone and that the Sfakians are directly descended from Doric tribes that invaded Crete from the direction of Macedonia and Illyria. Moreover, he discovered that Albanians, Montenegrins and Sfakians shared many similarities in stature, appearance, language, national costume, belligerent tendencies, tribal orders, and vendettas.
