Ateshgah of Baku

A fire temple on the Absheron Peninsula east of Baku, built by Zoroastrian and Hindu merchants on a site where natural gas seeps from the ground and sustained perpetual flames for centuries. The central altar court is enclosed by a caravanserai structure with cells formerly used by pilgrims and ascetics from India, dating largely from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The natural gas fires that once burned continuously were extinguished when industrial extraction lowered the subsurface pressure, and flames now burn from piped gas, but the site remains one of the most tangible Zoroastrian monuments in the South Caucasus.