To the ancients, however, these events were the markers that guided their lives. For that matter, it’s why Baku is where it is.
Our modern imaginations rarely can wrap themselves around what it must have been like thousands upon thousands of years ago. Or even hundreds.
Indeed, today’s Baku, with modern architectural marvels and skyscrapers reaching toward the heavens, is the very vision of the urgent capital of a rising 21st-century nation-state.
But it had to start somewhere — and if you take a tour of the 12th-century walls that form the fortress of the Old City, a must for all first-timers, that’s obviously reaching way, way back in time.
But not all the way back, according to historians. So why here?
Certain places have since the dawn of time been known to have attracted the earliest humans. In North America, for instance, prehistoric Native American artifacts have been found by the geothermal pools at what we now call Yellowstone National Park. Here, at the Absheron peninsula by the Caspian Sea, the ancients knew this area held fire — that is, undamped torches of natural gas.
Moreover, the geography of Baku Bay gives it a significant advantage. The bay offers shelter and protection from storms that could and would rage on the Caspian.
Thus the settlement that would become Baku was laid out on the very hill the city sits on now.
The precise origin of the city is unknown.
One historian has suggested a parallel between the name “Bakhau,” mentioned in a book that belongs to the end of the 3rd century BC. There are mentions between the 5th and 7th centuries AD of a town that fits this location called “Atli,” or “Atshi Bagavan,” meaning Fiery Bagavan.
What is clear: by what historians call the Sassanid era, from the third to seventh centuries, Baku was a center for Zoroastrianism — the faith founded in ancient Iran some 3500 years ago whose basic tenet is the battle between good and evil.
By the entrance to another tourist attraction, the Maiden’s Tower, a small mosque, probably from the 10th century, has been found, signaling the arrival and import of Islam.
The walls are 200 years later, said to have been built in the years 1138-39.
We, on this rainy Sunday, are nearly 900 years after that. People have been here all that time. Try — just try — to imagine.
Alan Abrahamson is an award-winning sportswriter, best-selling author and in-demand television analyst. In 2010 he launched his own website, 3 Wire Sports (www.3wiresports.com). From 2006 until 2010, Alan served as columnist at NBCOlympics.com, NBCSports.com and UniversalSports.com. For the 17 years before that, he was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times; he spent his first nine years at the newspaper covering news and the final eight sports, mostly the Olympic movement. The 2016 Rio Games marked his ninth Olympics, Summer and Winter; he is a member of the International Olympic Committee's press committee.