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The town of Üzümlü on the 18th km. of the Fethiye-Çameli highway is easily accessible. Nowadays the town is endeavouring to set itself up as an alternative to the hot-house and tourism potential of other regions in Fethiye, with the cultivation of grapes it is named after, the wine produced from them, and the ‘dastar’ woven here. We firmly believe that such efforts are worthy of praise.

On the other hand, the road which was renovated and widened in 1994 attracted the contemporary modern people wishing to enjoy both natural surroundings and to live close to the urban centres, who surged here to set up their new shelters over the slopes and the plains of the region. The forests on the slopes surrounding the plateau tend to retreat towards the peaks, resembling the infantry attempting to defend the last fortress.
The town of Üzümlü hovered between becoming a village and a town for many years. In fact, if the amendment to the constitution had been approved prior to the last elections, it would resume its status of being a village; but as the contemporary immigrants increased the population rapidly, it bid farewell to becoming a village. The centre of the village does not reflect the latest developments fully as yet. As we come to the centre, those loitering in the coffee-houses glance over the new comers as part of their past inheritance and then, with complete disregard, resume their card games. Once we overcome the reticence of being observed, we become one of the crowd and part of the milieu there and start to feel comfortable. Although the enjoyment of having a hot cup of tea on wooden chairs is partly destroyed by questions from groups of visitors about the availability of Nescafe, the modest houses with wooden verandas and the narrow streets opening up to the centre revive for me a familiar taste which I had forgotten since my childhood. As we catch our breath and start looking around, the century old plane trees protecting the centre, the village grocery which has not become a market, the display of textiles and ‘dastar’ displayed on stands, competing with those produced at the modern workshops in larger cities, all seem to call out to those who wish to carry a memento from here. The town of Üzümlü is located on the ancient road extending from Caunus (in the west) to Araxa (in the east) and was known as the Cadyanda Antique City. In so far as large scale research and excavations are not undertaken within the town up to now, we do not have detailed information about its historical development. Based on philological data, the –nd suffix in the name indicates that the origin dates back to the 3 thousand years B.C.. On the other hand, the oldest ruins unearthed from the antique city do not go back more than the 5th century B.C. Most of the ruins at Cadyanda are from the Roman Period. Although there was settlement here in the 7th century A.D. there are not a lot of ruins from this later period. A portion of the city walls, the rock tombs and the Lycian inscriptions are dated back to the earliest period. In addition to these, the ruins of the theatre from the Hellenistic Period, repaired and used during the Roman Period, the baths, the race track, the agora, the ruins of the temple built in honour of a god still to be ascertained, and numerous civilian buildings are all evidences of a fully established settlement during the antique period at Cadyanda. The town of Üzümlü at present is endeavouring to set up a name for itself, in addition to the Cadyanda Antique City, by the cultivation of the grapes it is named after, the wine produced from them and the ‘dastar’ woven here, competing with the hot-house and tourism potential of the other regions in Fethiye. The traditional ‘dastar’ woven primarily at Üzümlü as well as Incirköy, Ortaköy and Paşalı is as old as the settlement of Turkish clans in the region. In the early times, the silk cloth woven from the cocoons obtained from neighbouring villages could easily compete with that produced in the Bursa region. In fact, the dastars woven with the yellow cocoons were products sought avidly by the high society. Unfortunately, the yellow cocoons disappeared from the region and the raising of silkworms was abandoned. Until recently, the dastar was woven mainly for daily use and to be presented to marriageable girls of the neighbours However, in the face of latest technological achievements resulting in abundance of products, this handicraft retreated to storage rooms, and nowadays is displayed as samples in authentic locations and museums to lend a variety to materials exhibited. Yet, in recent years, there is a tendency to stay away of factorized products and a return to what is natural. Therefore, the dastar weaving has been resumed by using cotton fibre which is plentiful and easily obtainable in the region. Taking into consideration that it has many uses and the tourists coming to the region buy this product as authentic samples of the culture here, it is possible that the dastar will become a popular product in the forthcoming years. Dastar is a characteristic textile woven with bleached cotton threads with patterns preferably in the same colour. Two types of thread are used as weft and warp. The longitudinal threads are the warps and the horizontal threads are wefts. The weaving repeated both longitudinally and horizontally is called textile knitting. In the weaving of the dastar at Üzümlü, the knitting technique of cloth pedestal is used. This is the oldest and the easiest method. In the case of cloth pedestal, the warps are raised and lowered at similar levels. If the wefts are as tight as the warps, it gives an appearance of knots. İf the wefts are tighter than the wefts, a horizontal rip is observed. The rip looks longitudinal in the other case. By cris-crossing them, the tiny holes lend another feature to the texture. The texture becomes more durable by tightening the link in the criss-crossing. The motives used in dastars are called topak yanış (round embroidery), sulu yanış (diluted embroidery), sülük yanış (leech embroidery), çengel yanış (hooked embroidery), kilim yanış (kelim embroidery), deve boynu (neck of the camel). These motives are repated to create compositions depending on where the textile will be used. The small designs and motives may be scattered on the texture at certain distances. This is called speckled composition. In the composition called the medallion, the corners of the square cloth is softened by triangular motives; in the centre preferably diamond-shaped or schematic figures are placed. The dastar was originally used as head scarves. Nowadays there are variety of uses which will further be enhanced depending on promotional efforts. Similarly, the composition and the variety of motives will be further developed on the basis of increasing demand.