Ancient monument discovered in Azerbaijan

A historical monument has been discovered during the excavations carried out by archeologists of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Germany in the Garajamirli village of Azerbaijan’s northwestern Shamkir District, a local scholar said.

The monument dating back the 6th-5th centuries BC was believed to have been one of the residences of the Achaemenid Dynasty in the South Caucasus, the department head of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Ilyas Babayev said.

The remainders of the discovered eight columns show that there used to exist a big building in the site, he said. “The site is important not only for Azerbaijan but also for the entire world,” the scientist said.

The archeological excavations will be carried on next year to discover new monuments. German specialists will take the geophysical photos of the site at the next stage to allow the archeologists to define the exact location of a bigger building.

Babayev said that the material evidence would be protected in Azerbaijani museums, while the photos exhibited all over the world.

The head of the German archeological group Florian Knauss said that the site was a very valuable monument for Azerbaijan’s history.

The Achaemenid Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus II the Great in 553 BC and covered a vast area from Egypt as far as India. It was collapsed by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.*