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The Carians were an ancient people who inhabited the region of Caria in southwestern Anatolia. They spoke the Carian language, an extinct Anatolian language. Evidence of their language comes from inscriptions found in Egypt, where Carian mercenaries served the pharaohs from the 7th to 5th centuries BCE. While Carians considered themselves indigenous and related to the Lydians and Mysians, their territory became heavily Hellenized, with Greek cities along the coast and a mountainous interior. Caria eventually came under Lydian, then Persian rule, and later experienced periods under the Greek Delian League and Hellenistic rulers before being incorporated into the Roman province of Asia in 129 BCE.1234

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