Inan Dag, with the ark-made cleft in the top.
The drive towards Ashabu Kaf is dominated by the 2415m peak of of Inan Dag (or Snake Mountain). This lone karst towers over the landscape and is the symbol of the region. According to local tradition, when the waters of the Great Floor were receding, Noah’s Ark hit the mountain and knocked a chunk off the top, giving it the distinctive profile.
All the photographers on the bus got excited by men working in a field, so we stop for an extended time whilst they take photos. I stay on the bus to do some writing, and the driver takes this as his cue to start playing spooky music from the movies. It was a strange journey.
Ashabu Kaf is about 12km from Nachkhivan. The bottom of the path is a plain grey car park and toilet building. This was a portent of things to come.
The start of the climb looks quite promising…
The Story of the Sleepers
The story of the Sleepers is first mentioned in Chapter 18 of the Quran. Around 2000 years ago, an indeterminate number of youths and their dog fled to the cave to escape religious persecution. They fell asleep here for 309 years. Or 2163 dog years.
The story of the Seven Sleepers comes from Christian literature, written about 500 years later. In this tale there were exactly seven youths, but no dog. Thinking they had only slept one night, they awoke 187 years later, near the town of Ephesus (in Turkey).
Based on the Christian version there are also Caves of the Seven Sleepers in Ephesus in Turkey, Amman in Jordan and Turpan in China. And Glastonbury, where they slept with the Golden Chalice. And alien Elvis probably.
…then it gets steep
The cave in Azerbaijan points towards Mecca and is now a place of pilgrimage from all over the world. It’s reached via a series of well-maintained steps and numerous false summits.
There’s a small grotto on the way, where putting four stones will grant a wish. The surrounding area has been pretty well scoured, but could I have found four stones I’d have wished to be at the top already. It’s a steep climb and ends in a collection of even steeper ladders.
From below you can’t see any of the cave until you reach the top of the final ladder. Once you do, it’s just a very plain grey hollow in the rock, and about as exciting as the car park, but missing a toilet block.
Azerbaijan’s Cave of the Seven Sleepers – 309 years here
Lower down and off to the side is something far more interesting – a small shrine housing a large meteorite. The sacred black stone has been worn smooth and shiny by the hands of countless pilgrims.
The shiny meteorite in its shrine
Exhausted by the climb we sauntered down to find our ever hospitable hosts preparing yet more tea and cakes.
More tea, this time with lemon-flavourer sugar
Grave Monument of Prophet Noah
Back in the Naxcivan town centre is a small mausoleum marking the tomb of the Prophet Noah, of Great Ark fame, and the same chap that accidentally did a hit & run on the nearby Inan Dag.
Inside the tomb there was no sarcophagus or similar, so I’m not sure where the body actually is.
Getting filmed at the Grave Monument of Prophet Noah
We’d now been joined by the local tourism officials, and a camera crew from Azeri TV, both of which made it a little tricky to remain incognito, so a small crowd gathered to watch our every move. We retired to the tallest hotel in the area to get a better view across the river to Iran.
The full story of both versions of the Sleepers can be found at Wikipedia. Mentions of a giant scorpion are strangely absent.
This trip was arranged by the Azerbaijan Tourist Board, as part of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Silk Road Conference.
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Really interesting! Although, for a site of pilgrimage, it doesn’t look too crowded!
It’s really quite difficult to reach for pilgrims – it’s in an area of Azerbaijan cut off from the main part by the Armenian occupied zone
Giant Scorpion in legend, is really a reference to scorpio constellation.
While cup in glastonbury is a reference to cratera constellation.
There are a cave in Er Raqim in Amman, Jordan with seven sleepers and a dog, a reference to canis constellation.
Another seven sleepers’s cave in Der Rakim, Kurdistan, Iraq.
Another more in Marroc, Tunisia, Frace, Spain, Germany, Uyghuristan in China, Afghanistan, Tarsus, where pirates was said by Plutarch to begin the Mithraic Cult, and Ephesus in Turkey.
And there are a jewish seven sleepers’s cave in dead sea.
And Maitreya Buddha Seven Sleepers’s cave in another part from China.
Maitreya is believed to be a Chinese equivalent from Mithra.
Seven Sleepers’s Caves is believed by historians to have been a part from an initiation rite in Mithraic Persian Mysteries.
A religion now extinct, followed mainly by military mercenaries and merchants in outer parts from Roman and Persian Empires.
Catholic Church has abjured from these legend and removed these saints, but no so Greek, Syrian and Armenian Orthodox Churches.
Read about it here:
“Britannia after the Romans : being an attempt to illustrate the religious and political revolutions of that province in the fifth and succeeding centuries” Volume 2 Page 55
http://www.archive.org/stream/britanniaafterro00herbuoft/britanniaafterro00herbuoft_djvu.txt
There are more references in books, with explanations from these legends and rites.
There are an Iranian movie, available in english on this narrative.
Write me if you want a link to watch this film.
I think on this fact, from a Mithraic pagan fable been believed by Churches pretending to be christians; remember me to Bible passage 2 Timothy 4:3-4
The Voice (VOICE)
3 because a time will come when some will no longer tolerate sound teaching. Instead, they will live by their own desires; they’ll scratch their itching ears by surrounding themselves with teachers who approve of their lifestyles and tell them what they want to hear. 4 They will turn away from the real truth you have to offer because they prefer the sound of fables and myths.
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Giant scorpions always make for a more thrilling tale. Hey! Save a piece of cake for me. *grin*
In Azerbaijan there is always more cake!
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I like that you tell it how it is … as interesting as the car park? Guess depends how excited you get by car parks 🙂 Love the Noah’s Ark story too. A few people I know would totally suck that up.
I think it was disappointment that the amount of effort put in getting up there didn’t really pay off with anything to see at all. Everyone who wasn’t a pilgrim was reaching the top and letting out a somewhat disgruntled ‘Oh…’
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Alas!.
You censored my comments.
Not at all – I was in Cuba and therefore unable to access the internet to approve new comments