Ordubad — a five-thousand-year-old town
From Gamigaya to the Silk Road, from the Juma Mosque to the kahrizes — a short history of one of Azerbaijan's oldest towns.
The history of Ordubad begins with the Gamigaya rock carvings — thousands of images dating from the IV–I millennia BC, high in the Zangezur mountains at 3500 metres above sea level. They show that human settlement on Ordubad's land is more than five thousand years old.
In the Middle Ages Ordubad became an important stop on the Silk Road. The town's name comes from the Persian words "ordu" (army, camp) and "abad" (settlement) — a place where caravans and armies made camp. The Juma Mosque built in the XVII century, the Qeysariyya covered bazaar, the madrasa and the bathhouses are relics of that flourishing age.
Ordubad's most distinctive heritage is its kahriz system — underground water channels. More than 60 kahrizes once worked in the town; many still water the orchards today. Ordubad owes its name of «town of orchards» to these very kahrizes. Since 1977 the town has held the status of a historical and architectural reserve.
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