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Gobustan is a tiny area in the eastern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, at the
western coast of the Caspian Sea. As of 2007, the area is included in UNESCO’s
World Cultural Heritage List as the Rock Art Cultural Landscape.
Gobustan features rocky mounts with flat tops. Large pieces of fallen down rock create
sizeable caves adding further value to the area’s unique landscape. This is exactly the
place where over 6000 rock carvings ranging from the end of the Upper Paleolithic
to the Middle Ages were discovered. In 1966, mountains of Beyukdash, Kichikdash
and Jyngyrdagh-Yazylytepe together with the adjacent area of 4500 hectares were
granted the status of the National Reserve.
For thousands of years, the area was both a home and a shrine for the earliest human
tribes. This was the venue for their sacral rituals, magic rites, religious ceremonies,
ancestral worship, etc. The tradition of worship in Gobustan is preserved to this very
day. The local residents still use the Beyukdash Mount as a pilgrimage place in the
course of wedding ceremonies. The pilgrims also tie pieces of motley fabric to branches
of trees and shrubs of Kichikdash Mount and the sacred place called Gara-Alty.