Gobustan State Reserve

Gobustan State Reserve, established in 1966 on roughly 537 hectares some 60 kilometers south of Baku across the Boyukdash, Kichikdash and Jingirdagh hills, protects one of the world's largest concentrations of prehistoric rock carvings. More than 6,000 petroglyphs are cut into the reserve's rock shelters, depicting human figures, hunters, boats, dancers, animals and caravans in styles spanning roughly from the Upper Paleolithic through the medieval period, some estimated at around 15,000 years old. The site also preserves traces of ancient settlements and burial mounds used by the same communities over millennia. Near the reserve's entrance stands the Gaval Dash, a large stone slab that rings like a tambourine when struck, one of several such "singing stones" found here. Recognized for its exceptional record of early human life and ritual practice in the region, Gobustan was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007 as the Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape.