Dalyan - Kaunos was said to have been founded by Kaunos, son of Miletos and Kyane, on the southern coast of Karia, opposite Rhodes, and was known as Rhodian Peraea, at the foot of Mount Tarbelos . Its acropolis was called Imbros. It exported, chiefly to Rome , highly prized figs. It was the home of the painter Protogenes. The "Synecdemus" of Hierocles and most "Notitiae episcopatuum", as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, place it in Lycia , as a suffragan of Myra .
The name of Dalyan comes from the crawls dating back to the 19.th century. A crawl means "fish trap and fishing or fish production station".
It was established as a fishing village in the last century. On the wharf there's a mosque which belong to the last century. Its name comes from crawls which were set up on the Dalyan river.
Founded around the 9th century BC, Kaunos became an important Karian city in 400 B.C.. Right on the border with the Kingdom of Lycia , its culture reflected aspects of both kingdoms. The tombs, for instance, are in Lycian style. When Mausolos of Halicarnassus was ruler of Karia, his Hellenistic influence reached the Kaunians, who eagerly adopted the culture.
The Karian city wall built by Maussolos, the Lycian and Karian tombs, the medieval walls on the acropolis, a Roman fountain dedicated to Vespasianus, a theater from the 2nd century BC, remains of 4 temples, massive Roman baths and a Byzantine basilica of 5th/8th centuries.
The rock tombs sculpted in the form of the porticoes of small Ionic temples. These are among the most splendid examples of Lycian-type funerary architecture in Turkey , although the builders were Karians. The original occupants of the tombs are obscure but are assumed to have been Kaunian noblemen; in most cases they were vacated and reused in Roman times.
In ancient times in Anatolia, the region between the Meander (Menderes) and Indus (Dalaman) rivers in the south was called Karia. The inhabitants were Karians and Lelegians. In his Iliad, Homeros describes the Karians as the natives of Anatolia , defending their country against Greeks in joint cam-paigns in collaboration with the Trojans. The ancient name of Mugla is open for discussion. Various sources refer to the city as Mogola, Mobella or Mobolia.
There are almost no ruins to enlighten the history of Mugla. On the high hill to the north of the city, the presence of some insignificant ancient remains indicate that the acropolis was located here. Two inscriptions unearthed within the city are from the 2nd century B.C., attesting to Rhodian domination.
In 13th century B.C., following the invasion by Ramses II, the Karian region was under Egyptian rule for some time. The Anatolian tribes were defeated during the Trojan War and the Dorians settled along the southern shores in 1000 B.C. In 546 B.C., the Persians enslaved the Lycian King Croesus and took over the region when Karia became a satrap ship governed by kings of its own race.
In 334 B.C., Alexander arrived in Anatolia and, following the shore line, conquered first Halicarnassos (Bodrum) and then Mugla. After his with-drawal from the region, Mugla went through a dark period of tumult. In 188 B.C., with the aid of the Romans, Mugla fell under the reign of the Pergamum Kingdom . Attalus III, the King of Pergamum, bequeathed all the kingdom, including the Mugla region, to the Romans in 133 B.C., by virtue of which the city became a Roman province. For little time the area changed hands among various generals and dictators. In 395 A .D., when the Roman Empire was divided in two, it became part of the Eastern Romans & Byzantians
The Byzantian reign came to an end in 800 A .D. when the Abbasid Caliph Harun Al-Rashid arrived in the region, whereupon the Islamic influence became predominant. Following the Manzikert (Malazgirt) War, Anatolia was "Turkified" and some sources mention the arrival of Suleiman Shah (Kilij Aslan I) in 1074 A .D.
Seljukians in 1284, the region was called Mentese due to the domination by Mentese Beg. During the reign of the last Chief of Mentese, Ilyas Beg, by late 14th century (1390-1391), the region was con-quered by Bayezid I (The Thunderbolt) and, following the invasion of Tamerlane (Timur), it was captured by the Ottomans in 1424 which was the starting point of dominant Turkish rule.
