Gobustan Historical Settlement
Historical
Description
Gobustan (Qobustan) Historical Settlement
Gobustan (Qobustan) is a settlement in Baku, Azerbaijan. The area has a population of 37,137 people. Gobustan has outstanding universal value for the quality and density of its rock art engravings, for the substantial evidence the collection of rock art images presents for hunting, fauna, flora and lifestyles in pre-historic times and for the cultural continuity between prehistoric and mediaeval times that the site reflects.
The area has been settled since the 8th millennium BC. It is known for hosting thousands of rock engravings spread over 100 square km depicting hunting scenes, people, ships, constellations and animals. The rock engravings are an exceptional testimony to a way of life that has disappeared in the way they represent so graphically activities connected with hunting and fishing at a time when the climate and vegetation of the area were warmer and wetter than today. Its oldest petroglyphs date from the 12th century BC. In 2007, UNESCO included the 'Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape' in the World Heritage list.
‘Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape’ covers three areas of a plateau of rocky boulders rising out of the semi-desert of central Azerbaijan, with an outstanding collection of more than 6,000 rock engravings bearing testimony to 40,000 years of rock art. The site also features the remains of inhabited caves, settlements and burials, all reflecting an intensive human use by the inhabitants of the area during the wet period that followed the last Ice Age, from the Upper Paleolithic to the Middle Ages. The site, which covers an area of 537 ha, is part of the larger protected Gobustan Reservation.
Gobustan is also famous for its mud volcanoes. Nearly 300 of the world's 700 mud volcanoes are located in this part of eastern Azerbaijan near the Caspian Sea.