About sixty-five kilometres south of Baku, the limestone hills at Gobustan are covered with more than six thousand rock engravings, the earliest of them around twelve thousand years old. The figures — boats with rowers, dancing men, deer, oxen, hunting scenes — were made by the people who lived along this stretch of the Caspian when it was still rich in game and probably a much wetter place. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A small museum at the foot of the hill, smartly modernised in 2011, sets out the chronology and lets you make sense of what you're going to see. The petroglyphs themselves are reached on a short trail across the limestone ridges. Combine the trip with the mud volcanoes a short drive away — Azerbaijan has nearly half the world's mud volcanoes, bubbling pools of cold grey clay that locals once thought were the work of demons.