The Maiden Tower in Baku - Tourist Attraction

 Maiden Tower is one of the most prominent monuments of Azerbaijan.
 The Maiden Tower has been a museum since 1964. Tower was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. Hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to Baku every year to see the Maiden Tower. It is 28 meters high and 5 meters thick. The inner part of the tower is divided into 8 floors. Each floor is built of sawn stone and covered with a domed ceiling.

Etymology of the name of Maiden Tower 

There are different opinions about the etymology of the name of the Maiden Tower. The most important of them is that the castle is called the Maiden Tower according to the legend about the girl (according to some authors, the daughter of the Baku khan).

According to the legend, the girl, who was kept in the castle by her brother, could not bear this torment and threw herself from the top of the castle and drowned in the waters of the Caspian Sea.

 According to another interpretation of the name of the Maiden Tower, the fortress was called the Maiden Tower as a symbol of virginity among the people because it was never conquered by the enemies.

The History of The Maiden Tower 

There are a number of assumptions about the timing of construction. Thus, along with those who claim that the monument dates back to the Sumerian period, there are those who say that it was built in the XII century. The time difference here is more than 3,000 years, not a few years, as in other monuments with unknown dates of construction.

 An inscription on the walls of the Tower reads in Arabic: "The Tower of Massoud, son of David." According to many scholars, the Maiden's Tower was built during this period, as the style and line of the inscription is close to the 12th century writing.

 Some scholars attribute the Maiden Tower to antiquity, claiming that the building materials used were identical to those of the first millennium-old monument in Gabala.

There are conflicting opinions that the Maiden tTwer was built for defense purposes, a fire-worshiping temple, an eye tower, an observatory, and so on. Based on the structure of the monument, researchers have traced its history to ancient times, and found that the fortress was associated with the Zoroastrian shrine, the fire temple, the gods Mitra and Anahita, and so on. It is said that it was built in VIII-VII centuries.

 

The Maiden Tower, which had been damaged in various battles for centuries, was gradually restored, and in the Middle Ages, along with the Old City Wall, it served to defend the city. This is evidenced by the changes in the structure of the monument. One of the interesting features of the Maiden Tower is a water well carved into it from a rock. The 0.7-meter-diameter well is located in the south-eastern wall of the fortress. As a result of the calculations, it was determined that the well had nothing to do with the sea level.