Albania capital Tirana History - About Tirana

Albania capital Tirana History - About Tirana

Early period to 1418
The area now occupied by the city of Tirana has been populated since Paleolithic times[3] dating back 30,000 to 10,000 years ago as some tools were found near Mount Dajt's quarry terrain, as well as inside the Cave of the Pellumba. It can be said that Tirana's precincts are one of the earliest regions in Albania to be inhabited. Various remains discovered in fortresses, churches, villages and during urban constructions in and around Tirana, give evidence to a continuous activity throughout the chronological stages of human development. The oldest discovery in the area of Tirana has been a mosaic with several other remains of buildings of the later antiquity, found at the Kroi i Shengjinit (Fountain of Shengjin), near a Medieval temple. A castle, possibly called Tirkan, was built by Emperor Justinian in 520 AD and restored by Ahmed Pasha Toptani in the 18th century. The area had no especial importance in Illyrian and Classical times. There were medieval settlements in the area at Prezë, Ndroq, Lalmë and Petrelë Castle. In 1418, Marin Barleti, an Albanian Catholic priest and scholar, the first to write a history of Albania, referred in a Venetian document of "Plenum Tyrenae", a small village. There are references to "Tirana e Madhe" and "Tirana e Vogël" (Greater and Lesser Tirana).


Under Ottoman rule
The records of the first land registrations under the Ottomans in 1431-32 show that Tirana consisted of 60 inhabited areas, with nearly 2,028 houses and 7,300 inhabitants. The 1583 registration records that Tirana had 110 inhabited areas, with 2,900 houses and 20,000 inhabitants.


Tirana's Bazaar seen in a postcard of 1902.Süleiman Pasha Mulleti (or Sulejman Pashë Bargjini), a local ruler, established the Ottoman town in 1614 with a mosque, a commercial centre and a hammam (Turkish sauna). The town was located along caravan routes and grew rapidly in importance until the early 19th century. During this period, the mosque in the centre of Tirana, the Et'hem Bey Mosque designed by Molla Bey of Petrela, began to be constructed. It employed the best artisans in the country and was completed in 1821 by Molla's son, who was also Sulejman Pasha's grandnephew. In 1800, the first new comers arrived in the settlement, the so-called ortodoksit. They were Vlachs from villages of Korçë and Pogradec who settled around the area of today's Artificial Lake of Tirana.[4] Later, they started to be known as the llacifac and were the first christians to arrive after the foundation of the town.

In 1807, Tirana became the center of the Sub-Prefecture of Krujë-Tirana. After 1816, Tirana languished under the control of the Toptani family of Krujë. In 1865, Tirana became a Sub-Prefecture of the newly created Vilayet of Shkodër and Sanjak of Durrës. The Albanian language started to be taught in Tirana's schools in 1889. The patriotic club "Bashkimi" was founded in 1908 while on 26 November 1912, the national flag was raised in agreement with Ismail Qemali. During the Balkan Wars, the town was temporarily occupied by the Serbian army, and in 1914-15, it took part in uprising of the villages lead by Haxhi Qamili.