lycian

Lycian refers to things connected with Lycia, an ancient region on the southwestern coast of Anatolia in what is now Turkey. Lycia comprised a sequence of independent city-states along a rugged coastline facing the Mediterranean, with inland areas in the Taurus Mountains.

The Lycian language, an extinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, is known from inscriptions dating from roughly the 5th to the 4th centuries BCE and continued use into later periods. It was written in the Lycian script, an alphabet derived from the Greek script with distinctive letters.

The Lycian people were the inhabitants of Lycia. They produced distinctive material culture, including elaborate rock-cut tombs. In classical and Hellenistic times Lycia was ruled by larger powers, first under Persian influence, then integrated into the Hellenistic world after the campaigns of Alexander the Great. It later formed the Lycian League, a federal association of city-states with a representative assembly that coordinated certain common affairs. Under Roman rule, Lycia became part of the province of Lycia et Pamphylia.

Lycia is renowned for its archaeological remains, including cliff-carved tombs at sites such as Xanthos and Myra, and for its coastal cities like Patara, Xanthos, Tlos, and Phaselis. Today the region’s ruins lie in southwestern Turkey, and Lycian studies continue in linguistics and archaeology for insights into ancient language, society, and intercultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean.