Rising from the southeastern corner of Baku's Icherisheher — the walled Old City — the Maiden Tower is one of those rare monuments that manages to be genuinely mysterious even after centuries of scholarly debate. The cylindrical stone structure, roughly 29 metres tall with a distinctive projecting buttress that nobody has fully explained, dates back at least to the 12th century, though some archaeologists argue its foundations are far older, possibly pre-Islamic. What it was actually built for remains contested: a Zoroastrian fire temple, a defensive watchtower, an astronomical observatory, or simply a fortress keep. That ambiguity is part of its appeal. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List in 2001, recognising it as a masterpiece of Azerbaijani architecture rather than just a curiosity.
Monument