Shirvanshah`s Palace

The tall, slender portal of the main entrance is decorated with ornaments and inscriptions of extraordinary grace and beauty. Divankhane is a place of official receptions and state meetings. Next to the tomb is the building of the palace mosque. The elegant Arabic script on its minaret indicates that the monument was built in 1441. The turbe is the family tomb of the Shirvanshahs - the creation of the architect Muhammad Ali, whose name is artfully encoded in the ornamental medallions of the portal, which is not inferior in beauty and richness of ornamentation to the famous divankhane portal. In the southern courtyard of the complex stands a small octagonal mausoleum of the court scientist Seyid Yahya Bakuvi, crowned with a tent dome. At the lowest point of the complex, almost underground, there is a palace bath. It is badly destroyed, but what has been preserved speaks about the rational placement of its rooms covered with domes and vaults, about a skillfully organized system of heating and water supply, heating of bathing rooms. The eastern portal — the creation of the architect Amirshakh (1585) — is the only building in the ensemble of the XVI century. In 1964, the complex was declared a museum-reserve and taken under state protection.