Gobustan

Gobustan preserves some six thousand carvings on the boulders of a low limestone ridge above the Caspian, made over a span of roughly forty thousand years. Hunters, dancers, aurochs, and — repeatedly — long reed boats with rowers, which Thor Heyerdahl argued showed contact with the Norse world.

Among them is a Roman inscription from the first century AD, left by a centurion of the Twelfth Legion and marking the furthest known eastward trace of Roman soldiers.

A few kilometres away lies one of the densest concentrations of mud volcanoes on earth: cold grey cones that bubble, hiss and occasionally throw mud several metres into the air. Reaching them usually means transferring to a local driver for the rough track.