Historic Centre of Sheki with the Khan’s Palace

The Historic Centre of Sheki, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019, preserves the old town of Sheki in northern Azerbaijan together with its centerpiece, the Palace of the Sheki Khans. The palace was built in 1762 for Haji Chalabi Khan, founder of the Sheki Khanate, and served as a summer residence for its rulers; according to local tradition it was assembled without a single nail or any metal fastening, relying instead on interlocking wooden joinery. Its most celebrated feature is shebeke, an intricate technique of wooden latticework set with thousands of pieces of colored glass and held together without glue or nails, a craft still practiced by only a handful of artisans. The UNESCO-protected zone covers about 120.5 hectares with a 146-hectare buffer, recognizing Sheki's role as a historic Silk Road trading town shaped by roughly 2,700 years of continuous settlement.