Dardani

By the 3rd century the location of the Dardani had resolved itself into the Kingdom of Dardania, which is shown in yellow. The solid lines give modern borders: Republic of Kosovo in the center, Serbia across the north, Macedonia across the south, Albania to the SW, and Montenegro to the NW.
Languages
Palaeo-Balkan language group

The Dardani (/ˈdɑːrdənaɪ/; Ancient Greek: Δαρδάνιοι, Δάρδανοι; Latin: Dardani) or Dardanians were a Paleo-Balkan people, who lived in a region that was named Dardania after their settlement there.^[1][2] They were among the oldest Balkan peoples, and their society was very complex.^[3] The Dardani were the most stable and conservative ethnic element among the peoples of the central Balkans, retaining an enduring presence in the region for several centuries.^[4][5]

Ancient tradition considered the Dardani as an Illyrian people.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} Strabo, in particular – also mentioning Galabri and Thunatae as Dardanian tribes – describes the Dardani as one of the three strongest Illyrian peoples, the other two being the Ardiaei and Autariatae.^[13][14] As Dardanians had followed their own peculiar geographical, social and political development in Dardania, some ancient sources also distinguish them from those Illyrians dwelling in the central and southern coast of the eastern Adriatic Sea and its hinterland, who had constituted their own socio-political formation, referred to as 'Illyrian kingdom' by ancient authors.^[12][8][15] The Dardani were also related to their Thracian neighbors.^[16][17][18] In Roman times, there appear Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, and several Thracian and Dacian placenames also appear there, such as Dardapara and Quemedava,^[19] but Illyrian names dominated the rest.^[20] Nevertheless, ancient authors have not identified Dardanians with Thracians, and Strabo explicitly makes a clear distinction between them.^[21][22]

The Kingdom of Dardania was attested since the 4th century BC in ancient sources reporting the wars the Dardanians waged against their south-eastern neighbor – Macedon – until the 2nd century BC.^[16] The historian Justin, a main source about the history of the Macedonian kings, refers to an 'lllyrian war' between 346 and the end of 343 BC, fought by 'Dardani and other neighbouring peoples' against Philip II of Macedon, who won the conflict.^[23][24] After the Celtic invasion of the Balkans weakened the state of the Macedonians and Paeonians, the political and military role of the Dardanians began to grow in the region. They expanded their state to the area of Paeonia which definitively disappeared from history, and to some territories of the southern Illyrians. The Dardanians strongly pressured the Macedonians, using every opportunity to attack them. However the Macedonians quickly recovered and consolidated their state, and the Dardanians lost their important political role. The strengthening of the Illyrian (Ardiaean–Labeatan) state on their western borders also contributed to the restriction of Dardanian warlike actions towards their neighbors.^[25]

Dardanians fought against Roman proconsuls, and were finally defeated probably by Marcus Antonius in 39 BC or by Marcus Licinius Crassus in 29/8 BC.^[16] They were included in the Roman province of Moesia. After the Roman emperor Domitian divided the province of Moesia into Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior in 86 AD, the Dardani were located in southern Moesia Superior.^[26][16] A Roman colony was established at Scupi in Dardanian territory under the Flavian dynasty. In the 2nd century AD Dardanians were still notorious as brigands (latrones dardaniae). During the late Imperial period their territory was the homeland of many Roman emperors, notably Constantine the Great and Justinian I.^[16]

The ethnonym of the Dardani has been attested in ancient Greek literature as Dardaneis, Dardanioi and Dardanoi, and in Latin as Dardani.^[27] The term used for their territory was Dardanike (Δαρδανική).^[28] The root Dard- is attested outside the Dardanian region and the Trojan-Dardanian area in several other ancient ethnonyms, personal names, and toponyms: Dardas, an opraetor epiratrum; Δερδιενις, name of Macedonian-Elimiot princes; Δερδια in Thessaly; Δερδενις in Lesbos; in ancient Apulia Dardi, a Daunian tribe, Derdensis a region and Δαρδανον, a Daunian settlement. The suffix -ano in Dard- was common to many Indo-European languages.^[29]

The names of the two main Dardanian tribes – Galabri/Galabrioi and Thunatae/Thunatai – have been respectively connected to the Messapic Kalabroi/Calabri and Daunioi/Daunii in Apulia (south-eastern Italy), of Palaeo-Balkan provenance.^[30][17]

The name Dardan- (ethnonym: Δάρδανοι/Dardani; toponym: Δαρδανική/Dardania) is traditionally connected to the same root as dardhë, the Albanian word for 'pear',^[16][31] as well as Alb. dardhán, dardán, 'farmer'.^[31] The ethnonym Pirustae, which is attested since Roman times for a tribe close to the Dardani or living in Dardania, is considered to be the Latin translation of Dardani (cf. Latin pirus "pear"),^[32] which would confirm the link with the Albanian dardhë.^[33]

In 1854, Johann Georg von Hahn was the first to propose that the names Dardanoi and Dardania were related to the Albanian word dardhë ("pear, pear-tree"). This is suggested by the fact that toponyms related to fruits or animals are not unknown in the region (cf. Alb. dele, delmë "sheep" supposedly related to Dalmatia, Ulcinj in Montenegro < Alb. ujk, ulk "wolf" etc.).^[34][35] Albanian typical toponyms formed with the same root as dardhë have been attested: Dardhan-i (in 1467 CE), Dardhanesh-i (1431), Dardhasi (1431), Dardas (1467), Dardhë-a (1417), Darda, Dardhicë-a (1431).^[36] Several modern toponyms are found in various parts of Albania, including Dardha in Berat, Dardha in Korça, Dardha in Librazhd, Dardha in Puka, Dardhas in Pogradec, Dardhaj in Mirdita, and Dardhës in Përmet. Dardha in Puka is recorded as Darda in a 1671 ecclesiastical report and on a 1688 map by a Venetian cartographer. Dardha is also the name of an Albanian tribe in the northern part of the District of Dibra.^[35][31]

Opinions differ on the etymon of the root in Proto-Albanian, and eventually in Proto-Indo-European. On the basis of an alleged connection between Albanian dardhë and Greek ἄχερδος, ἀχράς "wild pear", a common Indo-European root has been tentatively reconstructed by scholars: *ĝʰor-d- "thorn bush"; *(n)ĝʰ∂rdis; *ĝʰerzd⁽ʰ⁾- "thorny, grain, barley". However it has been suggested that this connection is only conceivable assuming an ancient common Balkano-Aegean substrate word for Albanian and Greek.^[37][38][39] A proposed Indo-European root *dʰeregh- "a thorny plant", with the Proto-Albanian form reconstructed as *dʰorĝʰ-eh₂-, is not clear.^[37][39] More recently for the Albanian dardhë the Proto-Albanian *dardā has been reconstructed, itself a derivative of derdh "to tip out, pour, spill, secrete, cast (metals)" < PAlb *derda. In Old Albanian texts the root is recorded not umlautized: dardh. It continues Proto-Albanian *darda, which is close to onomatopoeic Lithuanian dardĕti "to rattle" Latvian dàrdêt "to creak", Welsh go-dyrddu "to mumble, to gumble" (the semantic development of "pear" that occurs in Albanian can also be seen in the Slavic parallel gruša, kruša "pear, pear tree" < *grušiti, *krušiti "to crumble, to break", and also in the Indo-European parallel *peisom "pear" < *peis-).^[40] Slavic toponyms with "Kruševo" (from Proto-Slavic kruša, "pear") and other related toponyms particularly found in the area of the ancient Dardani have been proposed as South Slavic translations of Darda- toponyms.^[41]

Other roots have been connected to the name Dardan- by some scholars. It has been proposed a possible link to darda "bee", maybe originally with the meaning of "noise", "chatter", compared with Sanskrit dardurá- "frog", "pipe", Lithuanian dardėt́i "to rattle", "chatter" (which however is regarded by Orel^[40] as an onomatopoeic form connected to Albanian derdh, hence to dardhë, see above), Gkreek δάρδα · μέλισσα "bee", sometimes interpreted as μόλυσμα "stain", δαρδαίνει · μολύνει "to stain", both late antique attestations from Hesychius (5th century CE) and with aberrant semantics.^[42] Another link has been made with the PIE root *dhereĝh- "to hold", "strong", which would have evolved to dard- in consistency with the phonetic change of voiced palatal velars that are a characteristic trait of Albanian.^[43]

The opinion criticising the etymologies based on roots that originally included *g̑h because in the earliest form of Albanian PIE *g̑h turned into *dʑ and correspondingly later into *dz, which should have been spelled in Greek/Latin documents with /z/, /s/, or a similar letter, instead of /d/, is refutable by the attestation of the Proto-Albanoid term diellina "henbane".^[44] This term was mentioned as a "Thracian-Dacian" phytonym by the Ancient Greek pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides (1st century AD), and it has a clear etymological connection with the Albanian word diell "sun" (diellina "henbane" belongs to the genus called solanum with the Latin root sol "sun", being so named because of its yellow leaves), displaying a characteristic Albanian phonetic change in which the voiced palatal velar *ĝ(h)- turned into the interdental dh or the dental d, passing through intermediate stages represented by the palato-alveolar affricate voiced ȷ́ [dʑ], dental affricate dz and further through a final stage dð (i.e. *ĝ(h)- > ȷ́ [dʑ] > dz > dð > dh/d: Alb. dielli < PAlb. *dðiella < *dziella- < EPAlb. *ȷ́élu̯a- < PIE *ǵʰélh₃u̯o- "yellow, golden, bright/shiny").^[45] This phenomenon reflects the uncertainty of the Ancient Greek and Roman authors in transcribing the Proto-Albanian affricates, which were unfamiliar to them. Indeed, many similar examples of Palaeo-Balkan names with alternating spellings in ancient literature using both dentals and sibilants can be connected to an earlier stage of Albanian and furthermore provide strong support for Eric Hamp's thesis about the Proto-Albanoid dialects, spoken in the central-western Balkans including the historical regions of Dardania, Illyria proper, Paeonia, Upper Moesia, western Dacia and western Thrace.^[45]

The name of the Dardani is mentioned for the first time in the Iliad in the name of Dardanus who founded Dardanus on the Aegean coast of Anatolia and his people the Dardanoi, from which the toponym Dardanelles is derived. Other parallel ethnic names in the Balkans and Anatolia, respectively include: Eneti and Enetoi, Bryges and Phryges. These parallels indicate closer links than simply a correlation of names. According to a current explanation, the connection is likely related to the large-scale movement of peoples that occurred at the end of the Bronze Age (around 1200 BC), when the attacks of the 'Sea Peoples' afflicted some of the established powers around the eastern Mediterranean.^[46]

In ancient historiography, the Dardani of the Balkans are mentioned as a people in the second century BCE by Polybius who describes their wars against Macedon in the third century BC.^[47] Historians of Hellenistic and Roman antiquity who mention the Dardanians are Diodorus Siculus, Marcus Terentius Varro, Strabo, Sallust, Appian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others. ^[48] According to a mythological tradition reported by Appian (2nd century AD), Dardanos (Δάρδανος), one of the sons of Illyrius (Ἰλλυριός), was the eponymous ancestor of the Dardanoi (Δάρδανοι).^[49] In ancient sources the Dardani are mentioned as one of the Illyrian people and/or as a distinct grouping in the region of Dardania. As such, the Dardani were Illyrians from an ethno-linguistic perspective, but they had followed their own peculiar geographical, social and political development in Dardania.^[50]

In the late 1st century BCE, in Rome a new ideological discourse was formed. Propagated by poets like Horace and Ovid, it constructed a glorious Trojan past for the Romans, who were claimed to be descendants of Trojan Dardanians. In the years before the Trojan origin story became the official Roman narrative about their origins, the Romans came into conflict in the Balkans with the Dardani.^[51] In public discourse this created the problem that the Roman army could be seen as fighting against a people who could be related to the ancestors of the Romans. The image of the historical Dardani in the 1st century BC was that of Illyrian barbarians who raided their Macedonian frontier and had to be dealt with. In this context, the name of a people known as the Moesi appeared in Roman sources. The Moesi are mentioned only in three ancient sources in the period after the death of Emperor Augustus in 14 CE. The name itself was taken from the name of the Mysians in Asia Minor.^[52] The choice seems to be related to the fact that the Trojan-era Mysians lived close to the Trojan-era Dardanians. As the name of the Dardani in Roman discourse became linked to the ancestors of the Romans, the actual Dardani began to be covered in Roman literature by other names. After the death of Augustus, their name in connection to the Balkans became a political problem. After the death of Augustus, the new emperor was Tiberius, his stepson and the most senior Roman general in the Balkans. As Tiberius had played a key role in the Roman conquest of the Balkans, as emperor he couldn't be portrayed as the conqueror of Dardanians, whose name had been constructed as the name of the mythical progenitors of the Romans. Thus, the decision to create a new name for Dardania and the Dardani was made. Despite this decision and the administrative use of the names Moesia and Moesi for the Dardani and Dardania, the original use of the name persisted by authors like Appian.^[52] The name Dardania was not used for several hundred years after this period in an administrative context. It was only recreated by Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century CE.^[53]

The territory of present-day Kosovo which formed the core area of the Dardani has been inhabited since the Neolithic era. Runik and Vlashnjë are two of the most significant sites in the Neolithic period. During the late 3rd millennium BCE, Proto-Indo-European tribes migrated and settled in the region alongside the existing Neolithic population. New practices in agriculture and cattle breeding appear in this period and new settlements formed in Kosovo. Co-existence and intermingling of the Neolithic population and the PIE-speakers gave rise to the material culture which developed in the Bronze Age (2100-1100 BCE) in settlements including Vlashnjë, Korishë, Pogragjë, Bardhi i Madh and Topanicë.

Archaeological research in the territory of Dardania greatly expanded since 2000. In contemporary research, a periodization of four phases of development of pre-Roman Dardania is being utilized:^[54]

1. 11th-9th century BCE, a transitory period between the Bronze and the Iron Age
2. 8th-7th century BCE, Iron Age I phase
3. 6th-4th century BCE, Iron Age II phase, during which contacts with the Mediterranean and imports from Greece increase
4. 4th-1st century BCE, Hellenistic period.

In the Iron Age habitation further developed with the emergence of the Glasinac-Mat culture, an Illyrian material culture which developed in the Iron Age western Balkans.^[55] The Dardani - as they became known in classical antiquity - were one of the particular groups of the Glasinac-Mat culture.^[56]

The Brnjica cultural group was a Late Bronze Age cultural manifestation in what was to become Dardania, closely connected to the Balkan-Danubian complex.^[57][58][59] It dates between the 14th and 10th centuries BCE,^[57] and appears in Kosovo, Morava valley, Sandzak, Macedonia and South-East Serbia.^[60] In Yugoslavian historiography, starting from Milutin Garašanin in the 1970s and 1980s, the Brnjica culture came to be interpreted as the "Daco-Moesian" and non-"Illyrian" linguistic component of the later Dardani.^[58][61] Before that change, Yugoslavian scholars had regarded the Dardani as of Illyrian origin. The narrative of a distinct "Daco-Moesian" concept developed as a response to Albanian and Bulgarian researchers, and especially to changes inside Yugoslavia due to increasing local nationalisms.^[62]

In Dardania tribal aristocracy and pre-urban development emerged from the 6th–5th centuries BC. The contacts of the Dardanians with the Mediterranean world began early and intensified during the Iron Age. Trade connections with the Ancient Greek world were created from the 7th century BC onwards.^[63] The proto-urban development was followed by the creation of urban centers and the emergence of craftsmanship, and a Dardanian polity began to develop from the 4th century BC.^[63] Material culture and accounts in classical sources suggest that Dardanian society reached an advanced phase of development.^[3][64]

The Dardani are referred to as one of the opponents of Macedon in the 4th century BC, clashing with Philip II who managed to subdue them and their neighbors, probably during the early period of his reign.^[24] The Dardani have remained quiet until Philip II's death, after which they were planning defection. However an open war have not been caused by their riots, since Alexander the Great managed to have the full control of the kingdom and its army after succeeding his father to the Macedonian throne. Indeed, the Dardani have not been mentioned in the ancient accounts concerning the events of Alexander's Balkan campaign.^[65] It appears that the Dardani evaded the Macedonian rule during the Wars of the Diadochi between 284 BC and 281 BC, at the time of Lysimachus'empire. Thereafter the Dardani became a constant threat to Macedon on its northern borders.^[66]

In 279 BC, at the times of the great Celtic invasion, Dardania was raided by several Celtic tribes on their campaigns that were undertaken to plunder the treasuries of Greek temples.^[66] During these events an unnamed Dardanian king offered to help the Macedonians with 20,000 soldiers to counteract the invading Celts, but it was refused by the Macedonian king Ptolemy Keraunos who, underestimating the Celtic strength, died fighting them.^[67][68][66] Only at the oracle of Delphi the Celts eventually arrested and were defeated. Afterwards they withdrew in the north passing through Dardania, however they were completely destroyed by the Dardani.^[69] Further references to the Dardani are provided in the ancient sources describing Dardanian constant wars against Macedonians from the second half of the 3rd century BC.^[69]

After the Celtic invasion of the Balkans weakened the state of the Macedonians and Paeonians, the political and military role of the Dardanians began to grow in the region. They expanded their state to the area of Paeonia which definitively disappeared from history.^[25] In 230 the Dardani under Longarus^[70] captured Bylazora from the Paeonians.^[71] Taking advantage of Macedonian weakness, in 229 the Dardani attacked Macedonia and defeated Demetrius II in an important battle.^[72] After obtaining a great victory over the Macedonian army the Dardani invaded Macedon proper. The Dardanian expansion in Macedon, similar to the Ardiaean expansion in Epirus around the same years, may have been part of a general movement among the Illyrian peoples.^[73]

In this period Dardanian influence on the region grew and some other Illyrian tribes deserted Teuta, joining the Dardani under Longarus and forcing Teuta to call off her expedition forces in Epirus.^[74] When Philip V rose to the Macedonian throne, skirmishing with Dardani began in 220-219 BC and he managed to capture Bylazora from them in 217 BC. Skirmishes continued in 211 and in 209 when a force of Dardani under Aeropus, probably a pretender to the Macedonian throne, captured Lychnidus and looted Macedonia taking 20.000 prisoners and retreating before Philip's forces could reach them.^[75]

In 201 Bato of Dardania along with Pleuratus the Illyrian and Amynander king of Athamania, cooperated with Roman consul Sulpicius in his expedition against Philip V.^[76] Being always under the menace of Dardanian attacks on Macedonia, around 183 BC Philip V made an alliance with the Bastarnae and invited them to settle in Polog, the region of Dardania closest to Macedonia.^[77] A joint campaign of the Bastarnae and Macedonians against the Dardanians was organized, but Philip V died and his son Perseus of Macedon withdrew his forces from the campaign. The Bastarnae crossed the Danube in huge numbers and although they didn't meet the Macedonians, they continued the campaign. Some 30,000 Bastarnae under the command of Clondicus seem to have defeated the Dardani.^[78] In 179 BC, the Bastarnae conquered the Dardani, who later in 174 pushed them out, in a war which proved catastrophic, with a few years later, in 170 BC, the Macedonians defeating the Dardani.^[79] Macedonia and Illyria became Roman protectorates in 168 BC.^[80] The Scordisci, a tribe of Celtic origin, most likely subdued the Dardani in the mid-2nd century BC, after which there was no mention of the Dardani for a long time.^[81]

Illyria and Macedonia became Roman protectorates in 168 BC.^[80] In 97 BC, the Dardani are mentioned again, defeated by the Macedonian Roman army.^[82] In 88 BC, the Dardani invaded the Roman province of Macedonia together with the Scordisci and the Maedi.^{[83][failed verification]}

The Romans found an ancient formed economy in Dardania, based on agriculture and animal husbandry, mining and metallurgy, in different handicrafts and in trade. The Romans focused especially in exploitation of mines, same as in other provinces, and in road construction.^[84][85]

It seems quite probable that the Dardani actually lost independence in 28 BC thus, the final occupation of Dardania by Rome has been connected with the beginnings of Augustus' rule in 6 AD, when they were finally conquered by Rome. Dardania was conquered by Gaius Scribonius Curio and the Latin language was soon adopted as the main language of the tribe as many other conquered and Romanized.^[86] After the Roman emperor Domitian divided the province of Moesia into Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior in 86 AD, the Dardani were located in southern Moesia Superior.^[26]

At first, Dardania was not a separate Roman province, but became a region in the province of Moesia Superior in 87 AD.^[87] Emperor Diocletian later (284) made Dardania into a separate^[87] province with its capital at Naissus (Niš). During the Byzantine administration (in the 6th century), there was a Byzantine province of Dardania that included cities of Ulpiana, Scupi, Justiniana Prima, and others.

A Dardanian polity began to develop from the 4th century BC.^[63] The Kingdom of Dardania was attested since the 4th century BC in ancient sources reporting the wars the Dardanians waged against their south-eastern neighbor – Macedon – until the 2nd century BC.^[16][25] The Dardanian kingdom was made up of many tribes and tribal groups, confirmed by Strabo,^[88] who mentions the Galabri and Thunatae as Dardanian tribes, and describes the Dardani as one of the three strongest Illyrian peoples, the other two being the Ardiaei and Autariatae.^[13][14]

The Dardanians, in all their history, always had separate domains from the rest of the Illyrians.^[89] The term used for their territory was (Δαρδανική),^[28] while other tribal areas had more unspecified terms, such as Autariaton khora (Αὐταριατῶν χώρα), for the "land of Autariatae." The term was used to describe the Dardanian political status as a semi-independent country in the later Roman Republic.^[90] Little data exists about the territory of the Dardani prior to Roman conquest, especially on its southern extent which has been contested with Macedon, so scholars use information provided in Roman times to define the bounds of Dardanian territory.^[91]

An unnamed Dardanian king is mentioned in ancient sources describing the events of the region of the early 3rd century BC. He offered the Macedonian king Ptolemy Ceraunos 20,000 soldiers to counteract the invading Celts, but Ceraunos declined the offer.^[66] Tribal chiefs Longarus and his son Bato took part in the wars against Romans and Macedonians.^[92]

• Unnamed Dardanian king (early 3rd century BC), who offered the Macedonian king Ptolemy Ceraunos 20,000 soldiers to counteract the invading Celts, but Ceraunos declined the offer.^[66]
• Longarus;^[93]
  • Bato^[93]
  • Monunius II

Etuta (Etleva)^[94] was the daughter of Monunius II of Dardania and the illyrian queen of Ardiaei.^[94] Some scholars believe that Illyrian rulers Bardylis,^[95] Audata,^[96] Cleitus (son of Bardylis),^[97] Bardylis II,^[98] Bircenna (daughter of Bardylis II),^[99] and Monunios were Dardanian, however this is considered an old fallacy because it is unsupported by any ancient source, while some facts and ancient geographical locations go squarely against it.^{[100][101][102][103][104]} Nevertheless, Bardylis, if not Dardanian, probably had some kind of hegemony on Dardanians during his reign.^[105][106]

Unlike their Thracian neighbors, in pre-Roman times the Dardani were not Hellenized.^[107] From the Greek point of view, they were barbarians. Because of this prejudice they received some bad press in the Ancient Greek and Roman historiography. The tribe was viewed of as "extremely barbaric".^{[108][page needed][109]} Claudius Aelianus and other writers^[who?] wrote that they bathed only three^[110] times in their lives. At birth, when they were wed and after they died. Strabo refers to them as wild^[111] and dwelling in dirty caves under dung-hills.^[112] This however may have had to do not with cleanliness, as bathing had to do with monetary^[109] status from the viewpoint of the Greeks.

Dardanian slaves or freedmen at the time of the Roman conquest were clearly of Paleo-Balkan origin, according to their personal names.^[113] It has been noted that personal names were mostly of the "Central-Dalmatian type".^[114]

The Dardanians had their own language.^[94] An extensive study based on onomastics of the Roman era has been undertaken by Radoslav Katičić which puts the Dardanian language area in the Central Illyrian area ("Central Illyrian" consisting of most of former Yugoslavia, north of southern Montenegro to the west of Morava, excepting ancient Liburnia in the northwest, but perhaps extending into Pannonia in the north).^[115][116] Another extensive study based on onomastics in Thrace, eastern Macedonia, Moesia, Dacia and Bithynia has been carried out by Dan Dana in the 2010s, also taking into consideration current Balkan historical linguistics. Dana concludes that the Illyrian character of Dardanian onomastics is unquestionable and that it is appropriate to definitively rule out the idea of a Thracian origin or participation (at least appreciable) in the ethnogenesis of the Dardani.^[117] Since the Dardani were neighbored to the east by the Thracians, the eastern parts of Dardania were at the Thraco-Illyrian contact zone. As shown by archaeological research Illyrian names are predominant in western Dardania (present-day Kosovo), and occasionally appear in eastern Dardania (present-day south-eastern Serbia), while Thracian names are found in the eastern parts, but are absent from the western parts.^{[12][10][9][5]} The correspondence of Illyrian onomastics in Dardania – including those of the Dardanian ruling dynasty – with those of the southern Illyrians suggests "thracianization" of parts of Dardania at a later date.^[9][118][92] The linguistic relationship between 'Illyrian' and 'Thracian' is uncertain due to the paucity of the available written material of those languages, consisting only of onomastic and toponymic evidence in the case of Illyrian, and the same for Thracian except for a few short inscriptions of difficult interpretation. Dardanian in the context of a distinct language is considered in recent decades as potentially significant for the history of the Albanian language.^[119]

Graves from the 6th and 5th centuries BCE in Romajë contain long iron bars which were placed in the tombs are a means of payment to the afterlife. They indicate that the tribe of the Dardani had developed a concept about the afterlife as shown later in other archaeological material like the votive monument of Smirë.^[120] The weapons included double-edged axes (Labrys), which might have been used in a ritualistic manner related to sun worship which was prevalent in the northern Illyrian tribes ^[121]

Among the characteristic Dardanian deities were Andinus, considered to have been the indigenous god of vegetation and soil fertility,^[122][123] and Dea Dardanica ("Dardanian Goddess"). They are attested in votive inscriptions of the Roman period in Dardania.

A monument representing a round labyrinth that was dedicated to the "Dardanian Goddess" was found in Smira. This monument provides evidence for cosmogonic and cosmologic knowledges among the Dardani.^[125] The labyrinth was realized based on the concept of the trinity. There is used a numerological and geometric approach through a multidimensional holographic field, which illustrates the Dardanian perception of the cosmic order and the interconnection between the material world and the higher realm.^[126]

Dardanian funerary stelae portray representations of their mourning practice, which accurately mirrors the Albanian traditional lamentation of the dead – gjâma. The lamentation of the dead is represented on the stelae through the depiction of the mourners with raised hands, grabbing their heads and beating their chests.^[127]

Strabo writes that Dardanians cared about music, always using musical instruments, both of the wind and string type.^[112]

• List of ancient Illyrian peoples and tribes
• List of ancient tribes in Illyria
• Illyrians
• Thracians

Media related to Dardani (Balkans) at Wikimedia Commons