Caryanda


Caryanda or Karyanda was a city on the coast of ancient Caria in southwestern Anatolia. Stephanus of Byzantium describes it as a city and harbour near Myndus and Cos. But λιμήν, in the text of Stephanus, is an emendation or alteration: the manuscripts have λίμνη. Strabo places Caryanda between Myndus and Bargylia, and he describes it, according to the common text, as "a lake, and island of the same name with it;" and thus the texts of Stephanus, who has got his information from Strabo, agree with the texts of Strabo. Pliny simply mentions the island Caryanda with a town; but he is in that passage only enumerating islands. In another passage he mentions Caryanda as a place on the mainland, and Pomponius Mela does also. Scylax of Caryanda, one of the most famous mariners and explorers of ancient times, was a native of Caryanda. He lived in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE and served the Persian king Darius I.
Originally, Caryanda was located on an island of the same name, but was relocated to a site on a bay on the north coast of the Bodrum Peninsula near Göl, in what is today the Turkish tourist resort town of Turkbuku. Caryanda was approximately 19 km north of the Dorian Greek city of Halicarnassus, the dominant city of the peninsula.
Caryanda was a member of the Athenian dominated Delian League during the 5th century BCE.