Gobustan National Park, officially Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is a hill and mountain site located about 40 miles southwest of Baku. It is a national historical landmark of Azerbaijan of preserving the the ancient carvings, relics, mud volcanoes and gas-stones.
This territory is very rich in archaeological monuments, and has over 6,000 rock engravings dating back between 5,000 - 40,000 years. The site also features the remains of inhabited caves, settlements and burials, all reflecting an intensive human use by the inhabitants of the area during the period of time that followed the last Ice Age.
Most of the rock engravings depict primitive men, animals, battle-pieces, ritual dances, bullfights, boats with armed oarsmen, warriors with lances in their hands, camel caravans, pictures of sun and stars.
In 2007 Gobustan was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, considered to be of "outstanding universal value" for the quality and density of its rock art engravings, for the substantial evidence - the collection of rock art images presents for hunting, fauna, flora and lifestyles in pre-historic times and for the cultural continuity between prehistoric and medieval times that the site reflects.
There is also a famous award-winning Museum of Gobustan which is worth visiting.
The region is also renowned for unique mud volcanoes and their healing qualities, a precious gift from the nature to Azerbaijan. Based on current discovery, the country is home to over a half of all the mud volcanoes on Earth, and most of them are concentrated in Gobustan National Park.