HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

The land of Caria lay during the first millennium BC in the southwest of Anatolia between Lydia and Lycia. A few dozen texts in the epichoric language, mostly very short or fragmentary, have been found in Caria itself or on objects likely to have originated there. These are dated very approximately to the fourth to third centuries BC. There is also a very fragmentary Carian–Greek bilingual from Athens, dated to the sixth century. By far the largest number of Carian texts consists of tomb inscriptions and graffiti left by Carian mercenaries in Egypt, dating from the seventh to fifth centuries BC. A new epoch in Carian studies has now begun with the dramatic discovery in 1996 of an extensive Carian–Greek bilingual by Turkish excavators in Kaunos and its remarkably swift publication by Frei and Marek (1997).

WRITING SYSTEM

The Carian script surely stands in some relationship to the Greek alphabet. The direction of writing is predominantly right to left in texts from Egypt, and left to right in those from Caria. Scriptio continua is frequent, and use of word-dividers is sporadic.

Decipherment of the Carian script has been a long and arduous task. Pioneering efforts by A. H. Sayce at the end of the nineteenth century were followed by several false steps based on the erroneous assumption of a syllabic or semisyllabic system and a long period of relative neglect.