Ancient Azerbaijan is situated on Central Asia. Azerbaijan is a geographic name. On the one hand this name is linked with the population, which lived in this region for thousand of years before our era, and who were mostly fire-worshippers. Local population considered that fire was their God and so they worshipped the fire. “Azer” means fire. On the other hand, the word “Azerbaijan” originates from the name of an ancient Turkish tribe and the word “Azer” means “a brave man”, “a brave boy”, “the fire keeper”.
Azerbaijan has very ancient history. The historical territory of Azerbaijan, bordered on the Great Caucasus from the North, the Alagoz chain, the basin of the lake Goycha and the Eastern Anatoly from the west, the Caspian Sea from the East and Sultaniye-Zanjan-Hamadan from the south, is a place of the primary cultures which gave the start to modern civilization. In those territories historically belonged to Azerbaijan they established rich distinctive culture and the state system. The most ancient artifacts related to the appearance of the first primitive people in Azerbaijan from 1.7-1,8 million years ago have recently been found in the country. Due to this rare finding, the territory of Azerbaijan has been included on the map of the most ancient inhabitants of Europe. The first and relatively broad information about the area and its ancient tribes was given in the work “History” of ancient Greek historian Herodotus. Various information related to the events of the history of Azerbaijan, especially on arrival of Hun and Turkic tribes to the Front Caucasus, about their old ethnic names can be found in the Bizantine sources. Economic, political and religious events occurring in Azerbaijan in early mid-century have been described in detail in the “History of Albania” by Musa Kalankatli which is written in Albanian language.
