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The squares one sees next to the Tower and elsewhere in the Old Town were once its seven bazaars. Similarly, the two caravanserais that still exist are from among the four that once served the heavy traffic of the “Silk Road” when Baku was the crossroad of its branches connecting the Caucasus and points west toward Europe and Russia.
It is an impressive stone structure, 5 meters thick and towering over 29 meters. Its name in Azeri, Qiz Qalasi, literally means virgin tower, alluding to its impenetrability as a defensive building.
The sign at the most prominent monument in the Old Town, the Maiden Tower, said that a settlement existed here as early as the “Paleolits” period, which meant as early as 10,000 B.C. In an arcaded courtyard near the Tower, I saw stone carvings from the burial sites which have been dated to the third and second centuries B.C.
Built in 1438, once well decorated both inside and outside with tiles (kashi) which, again, no longer exist.
From her general description of the system -“kind of like water wells, where the water that comes down in the desert from the higher elevation can be tapped” - it seems that this was a form of the underground water system kariz (qanat) used in Iran. Next to the reservoir were the ruins of the royal bath of the Palace.
In the hall for women, the guide mentioned another purpose it served: “At times of danger the Shah would keep his wife and children here. This room and the other hall were connected by stairs that went underground.
“Azeri mosques were generally very simple because we suppose that in the house of God we have to think about God and not the decorations in the interior,” our guide said. “But this was a royal, Shah, mosque and, therefore, it was nicely decorated.” She pointed to the mihrab (altar) of the big hall: “Now, as you see, not only the decorations are gone but it is full of bullet holes made by Russians who were here.”
The Mosque has two praying halls, the big one was for the Shah and his men courtiers and the small hall was for court women.
The exterior of the Mausoleum “was once covered with polished green and blue tiles,” our guide said, “but they were so beautiful that our communist leaders preferred to take them to their private houses.” Inside the Mausoleum Khalilullah was laid “with head orientated to Mecca according to Muslim traditions, and on his tombstone is a buta.
Lower Court. The Mausoleum of the Shirvanshahs is in the next court below this level. It was built for Khalilullah’s mother but, in fact, the Shirvanshah himself along with his wife, Khanike Sultan, and their sons were later buried there.
On the other side of the Bayil Stones are the remains of the “Key-Gubad Mosque-Madrasah” which was built during the reign of Shirvanshah Key-Gubad Farrukhzad II (1317-1356), and burned down in 1918 .
One reason for their defeat, the technological backwardness in weaponry, was explained, if metaphorically, in the medieval weapon trebuchet (kolookhandaz ) that stood nearby.
Of equal interest was an old cannon on display a few feet away which was said to have been used by the Qajar rulers of Iran to defend Baku against Russia in the early 19th Century.
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