Lectionary Calendar
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
Maundy Thursday
There are 3 days til Easter!
Attention!
For 10¢ a day you can enjoy StudyLight.org ads
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!

Bible Encyclopedias
Shemakha

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Search for…
or
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
Prev Entry
Shem
Next Entry
Shen-Si
Resource Toolbox

a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Baku, 70 m. W. of the town of Baku, and in 40° 38' N. and 48° 40' E. It has some 20,000 inhabitants, consisting of Tatars (75%), Armenians and Russians. Shemakha was the capital of the khanate of Shirvan, and was known to the Roman geographer Ptolemy as Kamachia. About the middle of the 16th century it was the seat of an English commercial factory, under the traveller Jenkinson, afterwards envoy extraordinary of the khan of Shirvan to Ivan the Terrible of Russia. In 1742 Shemakha was taken and destroyed by Nadir Shah of Persia, who, to punish the inhabitants for their creed (Sunnite Mahommedanism), built a new town under the same name about 16 m. to the W., at the foot of the main chain of the Caucasus. The new Shemakha was at different times a residence of the khan of Shirvan, but it was finally abandoned, and the old town rebuilt. The Russians first entered Shirvan in 1723, but soon retired. In 1795 they captured Shemakha as well as Baku; but the conquest was once more abandoned, and Shirvan was not finally annexed to Russia until 1805.

Bibliography Information
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Shemakha'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​bri/​s/shemakha.html. 1910.
adsFree icon
Ads FreeProfile