Dardanos is a toponym that has according to the evidence been in place for at least 3000 years. Too much should not be read into it. There has been no continuity of occupation or culture. Only the name of the general location has survived to be incorporated into the current substructure. Research concentrates on accumulating evidence for occupation of the general location at different periods. If there was an ancient city there, all certain memory had been lost by the start of the 19th century. The task of fixing its location remained. Since then a little excavation has been done but so far the evidence is mainly the testimony of ancient authors, and of inscriptions, which must be reconciled if they can be.
Classical city
The 19th-century classical scholars reasoned as follows. Strabo says that "After Abydos comes the Dardanian Promontory ... and also the city of Dardanus, which is 70 stadia from Abydos.[4] Dardanis was south of Abydos.[5] Bostock and Riley, translators and commentators on Pliny, identify it with Cape Barbieri.[2] Lemprière provides the alternative name, Kepos Burun,[6] the same as Kephez Point on the 1901 map, which ties in Dardanis finally with Kepos on the modern map.
Dardan- is generally considered to be the stem in the word Dardan-elles, whether the straits were named after the point or after the city. The above mentioned encyclopedic scholars toss around the phrase "at which the Hellespont begins to narrow" as a reason why Dardan- was chosen. No further justification is given.
It is possible to calculate a position for Dardanus from distances given in Strabo and Pliny. Strabo says that the distance between Abydos and Dardanos is 70 stadia.[7] The position of Abydos is known. The position of Dardanos is for the moment x, the unknown quantity.
Pliny says "The little town of Dardanum is distant from Rhœteum seventy stadia."[2] The position of Rhoetium is not very well localized either, but Bostock and Riley place it at Paleo Castro, appearing on the 1901 map. The coordinates are 40°00′57″N 26°18′39″E, near the small village of Octo. The distance along the coast from Octo to Abydos is 25.77 km (16.01 mi), which may be equated to 140 stadia. The method is no more than a rough approximation, since Pliny and Strabo are not likely to have used the same stadion, and no information exists about how the stadia were acquired. What counts is that it can be made compatible with the archaeology.
The 70 stadia from Dardanos to Abydos therefore account for 12.89 km (8.01 mi), at the lower end of the 13-14 km range cited in the Princeton Encyclopedia.[8] The distance of Dardanis, or Kephez Point, from Abydos along the coast, is 10.21 km, leaving 2.68 km, about 1.5 mi, to be applied to the distance from Dardanis to Dardanos. George Long (GL) in the Smith article gives it as 1 mile. Position x, if the beginning of the 2.68 is the docks at Kepos, is up on the hill of Şehitlik Batarya for the 1.5 mi., down in the modern settlement for the 1 mi. Knowing that nearly all poleis have an acropolis, the scholars immediately identified the top of Şehitlik Batarya as the acropolis of Dardanos.[9] The Princeton Encyclopedia calls it Mal Tepe.
Turkish Şehitlik Batarya means "Martyrdom Battery." This name stems from the use of the hill as a base for the Dardanos Battery during World War I. Several artillery pieces were there overlooking the Dardanelles. They were hit by counterbattery fire from British ships trying unsuccessfully to break through to Çanakkale on March 18, 1915. Four men were killed, or "martyred," for whose sake the name of the hill was changed after the war and a monument was constructed.
The hill is an uninhabited grassy field (the foundations lie under the grass) about 620 m (680 yd) N-S by 797 m (872 yd) E-W hedged by steep bluffs on the Dardanelles side. These appear on the satellite view as lines of vegetation. From the water they tower over Dardanos Beach, a strip between the water and the bluffs over which the summer resort community extends. Its narrowest width is about 110 m (120 yd).[10]