Petroglyphs!

Did you know that Azerbaijan has petroglyphs?  Neither did I until we came here.  I hadn't thought much about them until a month or so ago when we read the chapter about nomads (i.e. anything before cities in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent) in Kathleen's history textbook.  When we talked about cave paintings, I realized that we had some nomadic art right down the road from us.

So to celebrate Columbus Day this year, we took a trip down to Gobustan to see the petroglyphs.

There's not much to say about petroglyphs except that they are carvings on rocks.  I've never seen any petroglyphs before, but these ones were pretty interesting.  The museum and site were just small enough to keep the kids interested without overload.  Only Kathleen really got the idea that people who lived a very long time ago made these.  Everyone else just enjoyed running around the paths and making Brandon nervous.

After visiting the site, we drove a few minutes down the road and ate lunch by a rock carved by a legion who traveled here during Domitian's reign.  After lunch everyone got down to the real business of the day - rock climbing.  Because, of course, who wants history when there are much more interesting things to be done?