Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

Roughly 18,731 tourists visited the Gobustan State Historical-Artistic Reserve, a home to the world’s most important petroglyphs – stone and iron-age figures carved thousands of years ago.

The department head at the Reserve, Namil Mammadov, told Azertac that the number of visitors in the first 4 month of the year is more than in the same period of 2016, while bulk of them are foreigners.

The number of foreign tourists, who visited the Reserve listed among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is 11, 418, while the number of domestic tourists is 2, 720 people.

The visitors from Russia, Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, Italy, Britain, France and other countries made up the majority of tourists, he said.

Settled since the 8th millennium BC, the area contains more than 600,000 distinct paintings, going as far back as 20,000 years to as recent as 5,000 years ago. The rock paintings in the State Historical-Artistic Reserve depict a wide range of figures and scenes, including various hunting scenes, war scenes, trading scenes, and individual animals, and people.

The Gobustan petroglyphs were repeatedly investigated by the famous Norwegian explorer and adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl, who recognized local boats petroglyphs as the oldest known images of pirogue in the world.

These vessels, similar to the old Scandinavian ships, prompted him to make sensational hypothesis statement about the connection between Norwegians and Azerbaijanis.
Thor Heyerdahl concluded that the ancestors of the Scandinavians were the migrants from Azerbaijani region.

Apart from petroglyphs, there is also this musical gemstone known as Gaval Dash, which makes a tambourine-like sound when it is hit in different points.
Another interesting touristy spot is a stone slab with a Latin inscription dated by the first century. The stone lab was left here by 12th Roman legion of the Emperor Domitian, which indicates that legion had stayed here.

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