Gobustan

Gobustan (Qobustan) is a boulder field on a dry hillside an hour south of Baku carrying more than six thousand rock engravings cut over forty thousand years, of hunters, reed boats, cattle and rows of dancing figures, and it went on the UNESCO list in 2007. Thor Heyerdahl came here twice because the boats look like the ones he sailed. Out on the flats beyond the reserve stand the mud volcanoes, several hundred low grey cones that burp cold slurry at unpredictable intervals, and Azerbaijan has more of them than any other country.