Early 4th century BCE
Æ 9.5mm, 0.77 g, 7h
Head of female right, wearing stephane /
Forepart of bull butting right
Ashton, Beginning, pl. 3, 33; HN Online 1742″
Once upon a time, there was a town called Karyanda in a land named Caria. Now, Strabo placed the town between Myndos and Bargylia, but Stephanos of Byzantion disagreed, and put it near Myndos and Kos. Confusing our town further was the fact that Strabos and Pliny both suggested that the town was in two sites, originally on an island also named Karyanda, and later moving to the mainland.
Partly because the citizens of Karyanda were a thoroughly confused lot, wandering around the landscape naming whatever they saw “Karyanda”, their most famous citizen was an explorer named Skylax of Karyanda, who went on several quests given by Darius I of Persia in hopes of finding new places to name Karyanda.
In typical explorer fashion, he sailed down the Indus, where he came across random people and asked if anyone had found them yet. They replied that they were perfectly aware of their own existence, but hadn’t seen him before. So, Skylax relayed the info to Darius, who conquered and enslaved them all.
Skylax also sailed around Arabia, but when he asked those people if anyone had found them yet, they, having heard the travails of India, replied that “some other guy” had gotten there first.
The works of Skylax are currently out of print, but we do know it was the origin for the word “India”.
Coins from Karyanda are very rare. I haven’t found any information concerning who the obverse was besides the fact that she’s wearing a stephane. The ruins of the first Karyanda have since been found, though they’re mostly worn away. The mainland town is believed to have been built over during Byzantine times.