Fire altar
On four pillars.
لاله171 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ludvig14 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Robot8A — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Robot8A — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bernard Gagnon — CC BY 4.0 · Zahra Muhieddeen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ludvig14 — CC BY-SA 4.0
A fire temple in the town of Surakhany on the Absheron Peninsula; its Persian name, «Ateshgah», means home of fire. It was built over a natural gas field where fire once burned spontaneously as the gas escaped through vents in the ground, drawing fire worshippers and pilgrims for centuries. The present complex was built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a pentagon, its courtyard ringed by small cells for pilgrims, with a four-pillared altar in the middle where the fire burns. It was visited by traders and pilgrims from the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, who left inscriptions in several languages on its walls. The temple was abandoned in the late nineteenth century, and its natural flame went out in 1969 after nearly a century of oil and gas extraction in the area; today the fire is fed by a gas pipe. It became a museum in 1975 and a state historical-architectural reserve in 2007, and its cells now show scenes from the pilgrims' lives and the site's history. Tickets are about 15 AZN for foreign visitors per visitor guides, and a combined ticket with Yanar Dag costs 25 AZN per the Yanar Dag reserve's official website. Most visitors combine the two sites in half a day from Baku.
On four pillars.
Around the courtyard.
In several languages.
Surakhany town, Absheron Peninsula, about thirty kilometres east of central Baku
It was until it went out in 1969 after decades of oil and gas extraction; today it is fed by a gas pipe, while nearby Yanar Dag still burns naturally.