The Lycians were most likely in origin an Anatolian people since they spoke their own Indo-European language closely related to Luwian and Hittite. It seems they descended from the Luwians and probably entered Anatolia across the Bosphorus along with the Hittites in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. The earliest historical references to the Lycians date back to the Late Bronze Age (ca 1500-1200 BC) in numerous Egyptian, Hittite and Ugaritic texts. It is known from these that the Lycians (called ‘Lukka’ in these sources) were involved in acts of piracy against Cyprus around 1400 BC, that they fought against Egypt in the ranks of the Hittites during the battle of Kadesh in 1295 BC and that they participated with the Libyans. It is also known from these sources that the Lycians possessed powerful sea and land forces by the second millennium BC and had already established an independent state that existed until the Byzantine period (ca 395-1176 AD) though it was affected by disturbances during the Persian domination (545-334 BC) and the Roman Tyranny in 42 BC by Brutus.

In Greek legend the Lycians first appear as allies of Troy in the Trojan Wars. Homer reports: "From distant Lycia and the whirling Xanthos came the Lycians led by Sarpedon and heroic Glaucus". In myth the rulers of Lycia were the offspring of the mythical hero Bellerophon. Bellerophon was sent to Lycia to be punished for an improper love affair. However, he redeemed himself by killing the Chimaera, a fire-breathing monster which had been roaming the Lycian mountains and terrorizing the inhabitants, with the help of the winged horse Pegasus. The Chimaera still exists today, in the form of a perpetually-burning fire springing forth from the mountainside at the Lycian site of Olympos.