Quadrangular Mardakan Fortress

Did You Know?

• The Great Mardakan Castle was built in 1187-1188 at the order of the Shirvanshah Akhsitan I.
• The fortress was built in honour of the brilliant victory of Akhsitan over the enemy.

Architectural features

The Quadrangular Mardakan Fortress, also known as the Great Mardakan Castle, is a 12th-century structure built by Akhsitan I, son of Shirvanshah Minuchihr III. Located in the Mardakan settlement of Baku’s Khazar district, it is listed as a monument of world importance by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Culture and was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Reserve List in 2001 alongside other Caspian coastal defense sites.

The castle’s courtyard measures 24 by 20 meters, and its central tower rises 22 meters. According to L. Mamikonov, this height allowed defenders on the tower’s platform to fire into the courtyard and beyond the outer walls. The outer walls are reinforced with semi-circular blind towers at the corners and along the perimeter. The spacing between these towers is no more than 10 to 11 meters, which was unusually close for defensive construction before the 14th century. The architect likely reduced this distance to enable crossfire over the areas next to the outer walls.

The entrance gate sits in the middle of one wall and is flanked by well-fortified semi-circular towers. The courtyard is designed so that an enemy breaching the first line of defense and entering would find themselves in a narrow corridor just 5 meters wide between the donjon and the castle wall, making them an easy target for defenders on the tower’s top platform.

The donjon of the Quadrangular Mardakan Castle shows more advanced architectural features than the Round Mardakan Castle. While round donjons typically have three tiers, this square donjon is divided into five internal tiers. Only the first and last tiers have stone vaulted ceilings; the others have flat ceilings made from wooden beams. The addition of semi-circular towers on all four sides of the donjon gave it greater durability, allowing for increased height, and also improved the defense of the tower walls by enabling more effective organization of fire.