ave been a prevalent view
among the Greek writers, for Thucydides (i. 8) states that when Delos
was "purified" more than half the bodies found buried in it were those
of "Carians." Modern archaeological discovery, however, is against this
belief; and the fact that Mysus, Lydus and Car were regarded as brothers
indicates that the three populations who worshipped together in the
temple of Mylasa all belonged to the same stock. Homer (_Il_. x.
428-429) distinguishes the Leleges (_q.v._) from the Carians, to whom is
ascribed the invention of helmet-crests, coats of arms, and shield
handles.

A considerable number of short Carian inscriptions has been found, most
of them in Egypt. They were first noticed by Lepsius at Abu-Simbel,
where he correctly inferred that they were the work of the Carian
mercenaries of Psammetichus. The language, so far as it has been
deciphered, is "Asianic" and not Indo-European.

The excavations of W.R. Paton at Assarlik (_Journ. Hell. Studies_, 1887)
and of F. Winter at Idrias have resulted in the discovery of
Late-Mycenaean and Geometric pottery. Caria, however, figured but little
in history. It was absorbed into the kingdom of Lydia, where Carian
troops formed the bodyguard of the king. Cnidus and Halicarnassus on the
coast were colonized by Dorians. At Halicarnassus (q.v.) the Mausoleum,
the monument erected by Artemisia to her husband Mausolus, about 360
B.C., was excavated by Sir C.T. Newton in 1857-1858. Cnidus (q.v.) was
excavated at the same time, when the "Cnidian Lion," now in the British
Museum, was found crowning a tomb near the site of the old city (C.T.
Newton, _History of Discoveries at Cnidus, Halicarnassus and
Branchidae_). On the border-land between Caria and Lydia lay other Greek
cities, Miletus, Priene, and Magnesia (see articles s.v.), colonized in
early times by the Ionians. Inland was Tralles (mod. Aidin), which also
had an Ionic population, though it never belonged to the Ionic
confederacy (see TRALLES). The excavations of the English in 1868-1869,
of the French under O. Rayet and A. Thomas in 1873, and more recently of
the Germans under Th. Wiegand and Schrader in 1895-1898 have laid bare
the site of the Greek Priene, and the same has been done for the remains
of Magnesia ad Maeandrum by French excavators in 1842-1843 and the
German expedition under K. Humann in 1891-1893. A German expedition
under Th. Wiegand carried on excavations at Miletus (see articles on
these town