The Mystery of the “Hunnic Cemetery”: What Is Hidden in Buzovna’s Forgotten Necropolis?

Behind the high stone wall of an ordinary private home in Buzovna stand several ancient gravestones. They are not part of a decorative garden, nor were they moved there by archaeologists. The house simply happened to be built on the site of an old cemetery.

The owners have long grown accustomed to this unusual presence. To them, the stones have become part of the courtyard. To a historian, however, they tell a very different story.

They serve as a reminder that one of the largest ancient necropolises on the Absheron Peninsula once stretched across this area—a place that local residents still call Xun qəbirstanlığı, the “Hunnic Cemetery.”

The name sounds almost like a promise of a sensational discovery. Were the Huns—the people who reshaped the map of Europe and Asia during the Migration Period—really buried here? Or is this another example of collective memory transforming history into legend?

The answer is considerably more complicated.

A Cemetery That Is Gradually Disappearing

It is no longer possible to see the true scale of the necropolis today.

According to elderly residents of Buzovna, the cemetery covered a much larger area only a few decades ago. Then the settlement began to expand rapidly.

New streets appeared. Houses were built. Roads were laid. Gradually, the ancient necropolis was divided among privately owned properties.

Where rows of old gravestones once stood, there are now homes, gardens and outbuildings.

At times, the past literally emerges through the modern landscape.

Ancient graves still survive in the courtyards of some houses, beyond what is now considered the monument’s territory. They offer silent testimony that the original boundaries of the necropolis were considerably wider than is generally assumed today.

There are no signs, no museum and no protection—only a handful of ancient stones among modern buildings.

Why Is It Called the “Hunnic Cemetery”?

Every resident of Buzovna knows the cemetery’s name.

The same story has been passed down here from generation to generation: this is where the Huns, the fearsome horsemen who terrorised Eastern Europe in the fifth century, were buried.

Some versions go even further.

Tourism publications and internet sources sometimes claim that the cemetery is more than 2,000 years old and dates back to the third century BC.

But this is where collective memory begins to diverge from archaeology.

What Does Science Say?

Most Azerbaijani archaeologists treat the name “Hunnic Cemetery” with extreme caution. The reason is simple: all the well-studied gravestones in the necropolis display clear features of Islamic culture.

They bear Arabic epitaphs, Persian verse and traditional Muslim ornaments.

Some monuments even make it possible to identify the craftsmen who produced them.

Researchers believe that most of the surviving gravestones date from the 16th and 17th centuries, the period of the Safavid state—almost a thousand years after the Huns first appeared in the Caucasus.

In other words, if we judge solely by the visible part of the cemetery, what stands before us is a medieval Muslim necropolis.

But does that mean the legend is entirely wrong?

Not necessarily.

The Problem Is Not the Legend but the Absence of Excavations

Science cannot yet provide a definitive answer to the central question because the site has barely been studied. No full-scale archaeological excavations have been conducted within the necropolis. Its lower cultural layers have not been examined, and no stratigraphic findings have been published.

No one can say with certainty what lies beneath the Muslim graves visible today. Archaeologists therefore leave open the possibility that an older cemetery may exist below them and that the Islamic necropolis was later established on top of it.

Such multilayered sites are well known in many countries. Sacred places rarely disappear completely. More often, each new era simply reuses an existing sacred space.

Were the Huns Present on the Absheron Peninsula?

This question also requires a cautious answer.

Historical sources leave little doubt that the Huns appeared in the eastern Caucasus in the fourth and fifth centuries. They travelled through the Derbent Pass and fought against Caucasian Albania.

They left numerous archaeological sites in the north-eastern regions of present-day Azerbaijan.

However, no convincing archaeological evidence of Hunnic settlements or cemeteries has yet been found on the Absheron Peninsula itself.

That does not mean the Huns never came here. Absheron was already an important region at the time. Oil was extracted here, and salt deposits were exploited.

Trade routes crossed the peninsula. The appearance of Hunnic detachments on Absheron is therefore entirely possible.

But there is a vast difference between historical possibility and archaeological proof. That gap has yet to be bridged.

Stones That Outlived States

A close examination of the surviving gravestones makes it clear why they leave such a powerful impression.

There are massive limestone sarcophagi.

Tall stelae.

Intricate stone carvings.

Depictions of weapons.

Six-pointed and eight-pointed stars.

Solar symbols.

Calligraphic inscriptions.

Every stone is a historical document.

But these documents are gradually disappearing.

The wind erases the inscriptions.

The limestone crumbles.

Some monuments have been damaged by construction work.

Others are hidden behind the walls of private homes.

The necropolis continues to lose territory not because of war or natural disaster, but under the pressure of modern development and in the absence of systematic protection.

What Might Be Hidden Underground?

The most intriguing hypothesis is not necessarily about the Huns. It concerns the very nature of sites such as this one.

People have inhabited Absheron for several thousand years. The peninsula contains Bronze Age settlements, monuments associated with Caucasian Albania, medieval mausoleums and Islamic shrines.

Not far from here are Umid-gaya, with its Bronze Age petroglyphs, the Ali Ayaghi sanctuary, Tarsa Pir and the Nazranli neighbourhood.

Together, these sites form an extraordinarily dense historical landscape.

It is entirely possible that the “Hunnic Cemetery” is merely one layer in this history spanning thousands of years.

A History Yet to Be Written

Sometimes archaeology answers questions. At other times, it merely reveals how little we know.

Buzovna’s “Hunnic Cemetery” belongs to the second category.

Today, it is impossible to prove that Huns were buried here. But without serious archaeological research, it is equally impossible to prove that they were not.

Meanwhile, the necropolis continues to disappear slowly. Every new house reduces its territory. Every gravestone that is destroyed takes a fragment of history with it.

Perhaps the legend of the Huns will never be confirmed.

Or perhaps archaeologists will one day discover a much older cultural layer beneath the medieval Muslim graves—a finding that would force historians to reconsider not only the history of Buzovna, but that of the entire Absheron Peninsula.

History has a fondness for such paradoxes.

Sometimes the most important discoveries are waiting neither in famous museums nor in celebrated archaeological reserves.

They are hidden behind an ordinary village wall, where ancient graves continue to stand among modern homes—as if reminding us that the past rarely disappears completely. More often, it simply becomes part of someone’s courtyard.

To be continued.

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