Maiden Tower
Cylindrical stone tower in the walled Old City, now a museum with a rooftop view over the bay.
The tower rises from a ledge of coastal rock at the southern edge of Icherisheher, the walled Old City of Baku. It is a stone cylinder about 28 metres high on one side and 31 on the other, some 16.5 metres across, with walls five metres thick at the base. A Kufic inscription set 14 metres up reads as the tower of Masud ibn Davud and is dated on palaeographic grounds to the twelfth century, although several scholars argue that the lower courses are far older.
Its purpose has never been settled: a defensive keep, a watchtower, a Zoroastrian fire temple and an astronomical observatory have all been proposed, and the buttress projecting towards the sea remains unexplained. The tower was restored and converted for museum use between 2011 and 2013 under the Icherisheher master plan. Internal stairs climb through eight tiers, now holding archaeological finds and multimedia displays, to a roof terrace. With the Shirvanshahs' Palace it forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of the walled city.
Highlights
- Kufic inscription naming the tower of Masud ibn Davud
- Eight tiers of displays reached by internal stone stairs
- Roof terrace overlooking the Old City and Baku Bay
- Part of the UNESCO listing of the Walled City of Baku
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