Palace of the Shirvanshahs
Fifteenth-century royal complex in Baku's walled old city, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Shirvanshahs moved their capital from Shamakhi to Baku after an earthquake, and Shirvanshah Sheikh Ibrahim I began building the palace complex in 1411. Work continued through the fifteenth century under his successors, chiefly Khalilullah I. The ensemble grew on two terraces at the highest point of the walled city, using the local pale limestone and a restrained decorative vocabulary of carved inscriptions, muqarnas and stalactite hoods over doorways. It served as the seat of the dynasty until Shirvan lost its independence in the sixteenth century.
The complex takes in the main palace of about fifty rooms on two floors, the octagonal Divankhana with its carved portal, the royal burial vault, the palace mosque and minaret, the mausoleum of the Sufi scholar Seyid Yahya Bakuvi, the eastern portal known as Murad's Gate, a bathhouse and an underground reservoir. Displays in the rooms cover medieval Shirvan, including the Bayil Stones recovered from a submerged fortress in the bay. The palace was inscribed by UNESCO in 2000 with the city walls and the Maiden Tower.
Highlights
- Octagonal Divankhana with its carved stone portal
- Royal burial vault and the mausoleum of Seyid Yahya Bakuvi
- Bayil Stones raised from a submerged fortress in Baku Bay
- Murad's Gate, the eastern portal added in the sixteenth century
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