Dilek Peninsula-Büyük Menderes Delta National Park Aegean Region in general. The peninsula was shaped into its current form over several geological eras with the tectonic merging of Paleozoic schist formations, Mesozoic limestone and marble deposits, and finally the accretion of large clays and other sediments during the Neogene period. This is partly because of Turkey's unstable fault block terrain, and because of the close proximity of the Anatolian-Aegean plate boundary, which generates massifs of mountains all across western Turkey. This includes the peninsula and the mountains surrounding the Büyük Menderes River, known collectively as the Menderes Massif. The peninsula is highly mountainous, with most of its
Anatolian rug regarded as the beginning of the ascendancy of the Seljuq Turks. In the early fourteenth century, Marco Polo wrote in the account of his travels: "...et ibi fiunt soriani et tapeti pulchriores de mundo et pulchrioris coloris."<br> "...and here they make the most beautiful silks and carpets in the world, and with the most beautiful colours." Coming from Persia, Polo travelled from Sivas to Kayseri. Abu'l-Fida, citing Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi refers to rug export from Anatolian cities in the late 13th century: "That's where Turkoman carpets are made, which are exported to all other countries". He and the Moroccan merchant