PEARL OF THE ORIENT

Baku is one of the oldest cities in the world. Although its exact age is still a matter of controversy among historians, according to the well-known British Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie, the existence of Baku was already known in the 3rd millennium BC. Baku is mentioned in the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" as "sacred Bahau" - a city of inextinguishable lights on the shore of a primordial sea. Baku is also mentioned in the Old Testament, the Bible and the Gospel. It is mentioned in the Avesta as well. For a long time, until the advent of Islam, Baku was the spiritual centre of one of the world's oldest religions - Zoroastrianism.

A spiritual centre... Perhaps, the city was indebted for its position as the spiritual centre of the Zoroastrians to its location? Hills blown by the wind and washed by the sea from three sides. Spontaneously igniting fire in places where natural gas and oil escape from the ground. It is a place on a fault line where the four sacred elements of Zoroastrianism converge - fire, water, earth and wind (air). It is a place with magnetic energy of the geopathic zone.

Bag-Kur (divine origin), Atasi Baguan (Fiery City of God or City of Fiery God) - this is how the ancient names of Baku were deciphered, and each of them always contained a mention of God.

According to descriptions, in those days the city was a real home to temples of ancient religions - an anthropomorphic religion of Sumerians, and later - Zoroastrianism. There was a complex of religious buildings dedicated to the deities revered in those days - Ahura Mazda, the Green Goddess Vega, Anahit and Mithras.

There was also a small settlement of ministers of the ancient cult - the keepers of ancient magical knowledge - Caspian priests - mugs or, as Greek historians called them - "magicians".

It is a city visited by pilgrims from all parts of the world in those ancient times to pay homage to the sacred fires that embodied the fiery deity in the consciousness of followers of those forgotten religions. It has a central place of worship - an eight-storey seven-altar temple dedicated to the seven planetary gods, and later - Ahura Mazda (now this building is known as the Qiz Qalasi or the Maiden's Tower), in which all eight floors once shone with lights of different colours.

I must say that in the fire worshipping faiths of those times, each planet had its own specific colour. Saturn was black, Jupiter - grey, Mars - red, the sun - yellow, Venus - white, Mercury - purple, and the moon - green. These views remained in the memory of the Azerbaijani people, and are especially evident in the artistic traditions of Azerbaijani carpet weaving and applied arts.

In the pre-Zoroastrian period, the tower - Qiz Qalasi - belonged to an ancient goddess, who was once worshipped in Azerbaijan - the "heavenly mother" - Ann-Ana. In the Zoroastrian times, in the vast areas of the Persian Empire, which included Azerbaijan, she would be called Aredvi Sura Ana-hita. Baku has always been surrounded by mystical secrets.