Azerbaijan's ancient Shirvan capital — ruined caravanserais, rose gardens, and a wine tradition older than Islam
Shamakhi (Shemakha) is one of Azerbaijan's oldest cities, sitting on an earthquake-prone plateau between Baku and Sheki at 800m elevation. For centuries it was the capital of the Shirvanshah state, the most powerful principality of the eastern Caucasus, commanding the trade routes between the Caspian coast and the interior. The city was repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes and warfare — the 1667 earthquake that levelled much of Shamakhi sent its population to rebuild in what became the Shirvanshah's new capital at Baku — and what remains is a palimpsest of ruined caravanserais, ancient cemeter…
Shamakhi appears in Ptolemy's 2nd-century geography as 'Mamaschia.' Under the Shirvanshah dynasty (861–1538 CE), it was one of the most important cities of the eastern Caucasus — a center of silk production, mathematics, and astronomy. The poet Nizami Ganjavi's love interest in the epic poem 'Khosrow and Shirin' is a Shamakhi queen. Repeated earthquakes (notably 1667, 1859, and 1902) destroyed successive rebuildings of the city, and its political role was permanently eclipsed by Baku after the 1667 disaster. Russian colonial Shamakhi became a regional administrative center before the 1859 ear…