Baku 
Gyanja 
Naxcivan 
Lankaran 
Shabran is a very old historical site located near Quba in Azerbaijan.
The excavations at Shabran are not visually exciting. The few half-collapsed domes and the subterranean remnants of a small 16th-to 17th-century castle give little impression of the town's great historical significance. Still, the site is easy to visit while 'driving by' and worth a five-minute detour if you are heading for Nabran or Quba.
The ancient city of Shabran developed to exploit the then 'ideal climate of the narrow, fertile Caspian shore plain. Officially founded during the reign of Sassanid Shah Khosrov Anushirvan (531-579) it rapidh became one of the five main towns of Caucasian Albania and an important Caspian spur to the great Silk Routes.
Excavations indicate that it had advanced sewerage systems in the 9th century and piped fresh water from springs some 14km away. It later developed its own silk industry and, from the 9th to 12th centuries, was famous for 'Amilin Shabran glassware. It was here that the great 12th-century poet Xagani was incarcerated and produced his famous 'prison poems Hebsiye. Though the site was sandwiched for safety between a system of protective walls, its relative vulnerability meant administratne power was moved to Shamakha whose hilltop position was easier to defend.
Shabran was rebuilt after the Mongol destruction and it retained a trading role but when British wool merchants arrived in the 16th century they found Shabran's markets too small to bother with Raids by Khazar/Ossete gangs, Dagestani Lezghians and even (according to one source) Crimean Tatars, continued to undermine the city s reputation and eventually it withered away to nothing.
Incredibly the site was forgotten altogether during the 18 th century and only rediscovered by archaeologists in 1980. Heydar Aliyev and Thor Heyerdhal visited the site in 1983. Nobody has yet found the mythical Mekhak gold-divining stone. Nevertheless, walking along the site, you can find very old pieces of broken pottery that simply have not been excavated yet
Other interesting info on Shabran:
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