596 A KRAZEM-BEG, 
Remark 2. page 590. 
1) The names Bükou, Bäkhou, Bäkhout, Bäkoubeh, Bädkoubeh and Bakouh have alternately 
existed in the history of the East nearly one thousand years; and according to Teberi, some of 
them still existed in the beginning of the second century of the Muhammedan era. History and 
geography know very little or nothing about the town itself until the XVI century: it was the 
time when il begun to pass from hand to hand between the Shirwanshahides, the Sefewides and 
the Turks; till that period Bakou was known only by its name and its naphtha. The most ancient 
Muhammedan Geographers, for instance Jstakhri (who lived in the IX and X‘* centuries) and 
the Is Gkazwini (in the XIII century), make mention of Bakou and of its naphtha springs (read 
also the Arabic text from Zakeriya al-Gkasvini in the second part of this remark). The famous 
Teberi, contemporary with Zstakhrs;, makes mention of this town under the name of (S3>® Békhoui 
(see the Turkish version of this work belonging to the Library of the Imperial University of 
Kasan T.IIL., Part VI. chapt. 56 under the title of el2E ol EL eL= TES 4 Ébe 5) and 
makes it the head-quarters of the Musulman army during Sa’ids expedition against the Khazars 
(read the Index, Extr. V.), consequently we may believe that the name and the town existed 
in the earliest epochs of the Muhammedan history. But whether this town existed long be- 
fore that period, we do not know. À tradition current in Aderbidjan, especially in Bakou, says 
that this town existed even before Alexander the Great, that it slood to the South-East of 
the actual town; that its former name was Khunsér plus that it was, in the days of Ale- 
xander the Great, unéxpecledly covered by the rushing in of the waves of the Caspian Sea, an 
artifice contrived by -4restoon (Aristotle); and that the actual Bédkoubeh was built afterwards on 
the N. W. of the accursed Khunsér-Shahrib, — 
either to his having paid no attention to the period of the reign of the first dynasty, or to his having con- 
founded the first dynasty with the second, which was indeed founded after the conquest of the Djinghizides; na- 
mely, in 774 and which continued about 471 years, i. e. till the conquest of Shuh- Tehmâs in 945 of the 
Hidjret. See éd ri printed in Constantinople in 1146 of the Hidjret, p. [4V — |4A — Read also 
in the Le Pt about Clos _ 
b The tale is related in different ways; the most logical one is that Khunsär the founder of the ancient 
Bakou, which was called by the name of its founder, had a sister called Zumurrud (some make her Khun- 
sâr's wife), She was a pious woman, but in consequence of some love affair she was shut up in a tower where 
she passed some miserable years. At last she cursed her brother and the town where she lived and suffered 
and threw herself down from a window and perished, Heaven heard her prayers; because she was guiltless, and 
caused the town with the most part of its inhabitants to perish in the waves of an un expected sea, Tradition 
says that there was no sea at that time in the place where lies the Caspian Sea; d'ulgkarnein desired to 
humble the pride of the Gogs and Magogs by deluging a part of their country and prevent, by that means, their 
annual inroads into Persia. Therefore he adressed himself on the subject to 4restoon his Vizir. The wonderful 
philosopher , to whom all the secrets of chemistry were known, contrived a kind of spirit by the least ap- 
plication of which every thing would be dissolved into water! With this extraordinary mixture Arestoon tra- 
velled to the northern parts of the Caucasus, where having chosen a proper place for his laboratory, he ke- 
gun his work. All those parts of the Caucasus, which lay on the north occupying the vast extent between the 
Terek, the Volga and the Don, were dissolved and in the course of few days there appeared the present Cas- 
pian Sea, which with unexpected inundation overwhelmed all the countries and principalities, which were 
situated in the extent now occupied by the sea! Khünsar-shehri also was drowned in the waves’! 
