🇹🇳 Tunisia · Ancient city
Capsa (Gafsa)
Epipaleolithic to Modern (10,000 BCE-present; peak Capsian 8000-6000 BCE and Roman 1st-4th c CE) · Capsian Epipaleolithic / Numidian / Roman / Byzantine
Capsian oasis fortress Capsa.
✓VerifiedUNESCO
Search places, or jump to a section
CategoriesAncient cities
Capitals, ports and metropolises that rose, fell and were found again.
🇩🇿 Algeria · Ancient city
Phoenician / Roman / Early Christian · Phoenician / Roman / Christian
Phoenician-Roman-Christian cape town with Great 7-aisle basilica (largest in Africa) and St Salsa martyrion.
🇹🇳 Tunisia · Ancient city
Epipaleolithic to Modern (10,000 BCE-present; peak Capsian 8000-6000 BCE and Roman 1st-4th c CE) · Capsian Epipaleolithic / Numidian / Roman / Byzantine
Capsian oasis fortress Capsa.
🇵🇪 Peru · Ancient city
Late Archaic (3000 – 1800 BCE) · Caral-Supe
Aspero in Lima, Peru is a Late Archaic (3000 – 1800 BCE) ancient city attributed to Caral-Supe culture.
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan · Ancient city
Greco-Bactrian 3rd c BCE → Kushan 1st–3rd c CE · Greco-Bactrian → Kushan Bactria
Dalverzin Tepe Surkhandarya — Greco-Bactrian → Kushan fortified city (3rd c BCE–3rd c CE) on Surkhandarya plain 30 km NE Denau, excavated 1960s–80s by G.A. Pugachenkova and Turgunov (Uzbek).
🇨🇳 China · Ancient city
Hwando (Chinese: 丸都; pinyin: Wandu) is a mountain fortress of the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, built to protect Goguryeo's second capital, Gungnae.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Pyramid
Late Classic Maya, c.600-830 CE (Río Bec–Chenés, Late Classic) · Maya (Río Bec–Chenés)
Chicanná (House of Serpent Mouth, Bec Valley, Campeche) Structure II: 4-crown Río Bec pyramid (12 m high) with steep false stair, twin pseudo-temples and central monster-mouth portal (Chenés witz…
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Mississippian Pensacola phase (1250–1550 CE) · Mississippian (Pensacola culture)
Pensacola-Mississippian island capital (1250–1550 CE) on low swamp island (0.4 sq km) in Mobile-Tensaw Delta: 18 platform and burial mounds (largest Mound A 11 m high 90×60 m) enclosing 5 plazas on…
🇬🇷 Greece · Submerged site
Hellenistic to Early Roman (309 BCE – 100 BCE) · Diadoch Macedonian / Thracian
Hebros delta harbour of Lysimachus's capital Lysimachia — 100 m quay at –1.8 m in Lake Kaminia salt lagoon, Thrace.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
Late Classic 226 BCE–800 CE (apogee 615–800 CE Early–Late Classic) · Maya (B'aakal / Palenque dynasty; Western Maya lowlands)
Maya Classic capital of B'aakal on Chiapas foothills with low jungle: Temple of Inscriptions (22 m pyramid with 69-step Hieroglyphic Stair recording dynastic history and Pakal's vault; Pakal the…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Roman–Syriac (1st–5th century CE) with Bronze/Iron Age antecedents · Harranian Sabian / Edessan Aramaean → Roman / Byzantine
Tektek hilltop Sin-cult oasis with seven baetyl sanctuaries and Syriac rock inscriptions.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Buried city
Roman to Medieval (130–700 CE) · Greek / Roman / Egyptian / Hadrianic
Hadrian 130 CE Greek polis where Antinous drowned — 400x120 m Nile harbour grid city 350 ha with 18 m arch.
🇩🇪 Germany · Ancient city
Viking Age (early 8th century–1066 CE) · Danish Viking Age / Frankish border
UNESCO Archaeological Border Complex of Hedeby and Danevirke (2018) at the head of the Schlei inlet — the largest Viking Age town in Scandinavia, semi-circular 27 ha rampart enclosing plot-divided…
🇮🇹 Italy · Submerged site
Roman Republican (37 – 12 BCE) · Roman Augustan (Agrippa)
Agrippa's 37 BCE volcanic-rim war harbour joining Lake Avernus to Lucrine Lake — causeway dam now –1 to –6 m under Lucrinus lagoon.
🇮🇹 Italy · Ancient city
Archaic to Roman (720 BCE – 7th c. CE) · Achaean Greek / Athenian / Roman (Bruttian interlude)
Richest Achaean colony, drowned by diverted river and then 9 m of alluvium hiding three successive cities.
🇭🇷 Croatia · Submerged site
Illyrian to Byzantine (c. 300 BCE – 614 CE) · Illyrian / Greek / Roman Dalmatian / Byzantine
Diocletian's capital harbour – twin moles 70 m and 50 m at –1.5 to –3 m in Solin bay.
🇨🇿 Czech Republic · Ancient city
Early Medieval Great Moravia 600–907 (peak 830–907) · Great Moravian Slavs (Veligrad hypothesis; Mojmirid)
Mikulčice-Valy — largest Great Moravian agglomeration (6th–10th c, peak Veligrad phase 830–907) on Morava floodplain at Slovak border, 30–50 ha fortified core + suburbs 150 ha.
🇵🇹 Portugal · Ancient city
Late Bronze to Roman (c.900 BCE–100 CE) · Castro culture (Calaici–Bracari coastal)
Cividade de Terroso (Late Bronze Age–Roman, c.900 BCE–100 CE) on a 153-m hill 5 km east of Póvoa de Varzim beach is the coastal anchor of the Ave–Cávado castro system, a 12-hectare walled town with…
🇺🇦 Ukraine · Ancient city
Chalcolithic Trypillia B2 (c.3800–3600 BCE) · Cucuteni-Trypillia (Western Trypillia)
Maydanets (Maidanetske) — giant Cucuteni-Trypillia B2 mega-settlement (c.3800–3600 BCE, 200–260 ha, ~1,575–2,900 houses, 9,000–46,000 estimates) on Talyanka River, Cherkasy.
🇱🇾 Libya · Submerged site
Archaic to Byzantine (631 BCE inland Cyrene; port 6th c. BCE – 7th c. CE Arab) · Dor Greek / Hellenistic / Roman / Byzantine
Cyrene port on the Libyan limestone coast — moles and shipsheds now 2–4 m under crystal water at Marsa Susa after AD 365 quake.
🇷🇺 Russia · Submerged site
Archaic to Late Antique (c.600 BCE – 375 CE) · Milesian Greek / Bosporan Kingdom
Bosporan capital on Mount Mithridat — lower harbour and north-slope warehouses now 0.5–3 m submerged in Kerch Bay.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
500 BCE–1542 CE (Preclassic through Postclassic to Contact; apogee CIassical 600–950) · Maya (northwestern Yucatán, Dzibilchaltún polity)
Northern Maya lowland megasite spanning 17 km² (largest in Yucatán by area, 8,400 structures, 1,300 vaulted buildings) occupied extraordinarily from Middle Preclassic 500 BCE to Conquest ~1542 CE…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Early Bronze to Iron Age (3000–700 BCE; peak MBA colony and Hittite Empire) · Hattian / Assyrian colony → Old Hittite → Hittite Empire → Phrygian
Alaca plain tell with Assyrian colony, Hittite gold treasure and EB Alaca-culture tombs.
🇬🇷 Greece · Submerged site
Early Bronze Age to Classical (c. 3000 – 373 BCE) · Mycenaean / Achaean Greek
Classical Achaean capital submerged by 373 BCE earthquake-tsunami, rediscovered 2001 buried beneath coastal plain near Rizomylos.
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Ancient city
Preclassic–Classic · Maya (Ixcun stela cult)
Dolores valley stela city (600 BCE–900 CE) near Guatemalan-Belize border with 8 photogenic carved stela altars including Stela 1 3.2 m tall — tallest Petén north stela with 9.16.0....
