The Carians (Greek Καρες Kares, or Καρικοι Karikoi) were the eponymous inhabitants of Caria. According to tradition, the Carians were named after Car, one of their legendary early kings (Herodotus, 1.171). Classical Greeks would often claim that Caria was originally colonized by Ionian Greeks, but it seems rather that the Carians were settled in the region before the Greeks. Homer records that Miletus (later an Ionian city) was a Carian city at the time of the Trojan War (Iliad, 2.865), and Herodotus (1.171) recorded that Carians believed themselves to be aborigenes of Caria. An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, whose name has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ... Caria (Greek Καρία) was a region of Asia Minor, situated south of Ionia, and west of Phrygia and Lycia. ... Car can be taken to mean: // Vehicle An automobile. ... Jump to: navigation, search Bust of Herodotus Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΣ, Herodotos) was an ancient historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ... Ionian Islands Ionia (Greek Ιωνία) was an ancient region of western coastal of Anatolia (now in Turkey). ... Jump to: navigation, search Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... Jump to: navigation, search Miletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia (in what is now the Aydin Province of Turkey), near the mouth of the Maeander River. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Trojan War was a war waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor by the armies of the Achaeans, following the kidnapping (or elopement) of Helen of Sparta by Paris of Troy. ... The Iliad (Greek Ιλιάς, Ilias) tells part of the story of the siege of the city of Ilium, i. ...

Modern lingustics suggests that the Carian language was an Anatolian language, a linguistic branch that includes Lycian and Lydian. If the Carians were in fact late colonists from the Cyclades as some ancient Greek sources claimed, their language would presumably have been closer to Greek (as the language of the Phrygians was). Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... The Carian language was the language of the Carians. ... The Anatolian languages are a group of extinct languages, either Indo-European or (in some classifications) closely related to Indo-European, which were spoken in Asia Minor, including Hittite. ... Lycian was an Indo-European language, one of the Anatolian languages, that was spoken in the Iron age region of Lycia in Anatolia, present day Turkey. ... Lydian was an Indo-European language, one of the Anatolian languages, that was spoken in the state of Lydia in Anatolia, present day Turkey. ... The Cyclades, from the Greek Κυκλάδες, (circular, modern Greek Kykládes; see also List of traditional Greek place names) form an island group south-east of the mainland of Greece. ... The Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, a people who probably migrated from Thrace to Asia Minor in the Bronze Age. ...

A group of mercenaries called Carians are named in inscriptions found in ancient Egypt and Nubia, dated to the reigns of Psammetichus I and II. The Carians are clearly mentioned at 2 Kings 11:4 and possibly at Samuel 8:18, 15:18, and 20:23. Homer records that the Carians joined the Trojans against the Achaeans (Iliad, 2.865). Mercenary (disambiguation). ... Today Nubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan, but in ancient times it was an independent kingdom. ... Psammetichus, or Psamtik I, was the first of three kings of the Saite, or Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (664 - 610 BC). ... praenomen or throne name nomen or birth name Psammetichus II (also spelled Psammeticus, Psammetich, and Psamtik II) was a king of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt (595 BC-589 BC). ... The Books of Kings (also known as [The Book of] Kings in Hebrew: Sefer Melachim מלכים) is a part of Judaisms Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. ... For other people with the name Samuel see Sam In the Old Testament, Samuel or Shmuel (שְׁמוּאֵל Name/Heard of God, Standard Hebrew Å É™muʼel, Tiberian Hebrew Å É™mûʼēl) is a leader of ancient Israel. ... Walls of the excavated city of Troy This article is about the city of Troy / Ilion as described in the works of Homer, and the location of an ancient city associated with it. ... The Achaeans (also Akhaians, Greek Αχαιοί) is the collective name given to the Greek forces in Homers Iliad. ... The Iliad (Greek Ιλιάς, Ilias) tells part of the story of the siege of the city of Ilium, i. ...

The Carians were often linked to the Leleges, but the exact nature of the relationship between Carians and Leleges remains mysterious. The two groups seem to have been distinct, but later intermingled with each other. Strabo (7.321; 13.611) wrote that they were so intermingled that they were often confounded with each other. However, Athenaeus (6.271) stated that the Leleges stood in relation to the Carians as the Helots stood to the Lacedaemonians. The Leleges were one of the aboriginal peoples of Greece, the Aegean and southwest Anatolia (compare Pelasgians), who were found there when the Indo-European Hellenes arrived. ... Strabo (squinty) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. ... Athenaeus (ca. ... Helots were Peloponnesian Greeks who were enslaved under Spartan rule. ... Laconia (Λακωνία), also known as Lacedaemonia, was in ancient Greece the portion of the Peloponnesus of which the most important city was Sparta. ...

This confusion of the two peoples is found also in Herodotus (1.171), who wrote that the Carians, when they were allegedly living amid the Cyclades, were known as Leleges.

See also

• Mysians
• Lydians
• Lycians