Rock Mosques and Associated Sacred Sites of Mangystau
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How it came to be
On the Mangystau Peninsula beside the Caspian Sea stand five sacred sites cut into rock: Beket-Ata, Shopan-Ata, Karaman-Ata, Shakpak-Ata and Sultan-Epe. Each is linked to a Sufi master and they date from the 12th to the 18th centuries. Known locally as "underground mosques", they are set in natural caves, carved into cliffs or dug into the ground, with prayer halls, mihrabs and saints' tombs. The cemeteries around them span the 10th to the 20th centuries.
Shopan-Ata, the oldest, goes back to the 12th century. Its saint is believed to have been a pupil of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (c. 1093 to c. 1166), founder of the Yasawi Sufi order, and more than 1,600 graves of the 10th to 14th centuries have been recorded in its necropolis. Sultan-Epe also dates to the 12th century and has nine rooms and a sacred well, while Karaman-Ata was carved into a marl hill in the 13th century. Together they show Sufi practice in a nomadic world carrying on older customs of ancestor worship and reverence for the landscape.
Beket-Ata, the youngest, is from the 18th century. Beket Myrzagululy studied in Bukhara, came home, built four mosques and was buried in the one at Oglandy, which now bears his name. The first scientific research at the sites took place in 1951 and 1952, and state protection followed on 26 January 1982. In its 2026 evaluation ICOMOS recommended leaving Beket-Ata out, but all five sites were inscribed.
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