🇳🇬 Nigeria · Rock art
Dutsen Kongba (Jos Plateau)
Nok to Berom (1500 BCE–present) · Nok / Proto-Berom
Jos Plateau rock-gong complex with 8 granite gongs and Nok scatter.
Search places, or jump to a section
CategoriesArchaeological wonders
Places that defy a simple label.
🇨🇳 China · Temple complex
Tang → Yuan → Ming Yongle peak → Qing · Taoist (Zhenwu / Xuanwu school)
Taoist sacred mountain complex on 72 peaks 800–1612 m, 9 palaces, 36 convents and 72 cliff temples built primarily 1412–1424 under Ming Yongle emperor (200,000 artisans) as political legitimation…
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Rock art
Nok to Berom (1500 BCE–present) · Nok / Proto-Berom
Jos Plateau rock-gong complex with 8 granite gongs and Nok scatter.
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Early Medieval (11th c.) · Chalukya
Kulpak — Kolanupaka Temple in Telangana, Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri, India is a Early Medieval (11th c.) temple complex attributed to Chalukya culture.
🇬🇷 Greece · Temple complex
Late Archaic 500–490 BCE · Aeginetan Greek
Aegina ridge-top Doric temple whose pediments chart birth of Classical sculpture.
🇵🇪 Peru · Megalith
Late Intermediate–Late Horizon Colla–Inca 1100–1532 CE · Colla (Qolla) and Inca
Second chullpa field after Sillustani: 120 towers 10 m on mesa with puma and monkey reliefs.
🇷🇺 Russia · Archaeological wonder
Early Scythian (~900–700 BCE) · Aldy-Bel / Arzhan (early Scythian–Siberian)
Enormous 120-m stone platform kurgan in the Uyuk depression, where archaeologists led by Gryaznov and later Chugunov uncovered a radial larch log mortuary house with central royal double burial and…
🇹🇯 Tajikistan · Ancient city
Afanasievo to Sarazm Chalcolithic–Bronze Age · Sarazm culture (Central Asian proto-Bactrian)
Earliest proto-urban centre in Central Asia (4000–2000 BCE) in Zarafshan Valley, Tajikistan's first UNESCO site (2010), 100 ha town with irrigation canals, palace, fortified citadel and aeolian…
🇹🇳 Tunisia · Ancient city
Punic / Roman / Byzantine (4th c BCE–7th c CE) · Punic / Roman
Roman–Punic oil port with amphitheatre and thermae on Gulf of Gabès.
🇵🇪 Peru · Temple complex
Inca Imperial 1450–1530 Neo-Inca to 1572 · Inca (Pachacuti? Topa Yupanqui)
Inca cloud-city with white stone llamas paving terraces above Apurimac canyon.
🇳🇬 Nigeria · Ancient village
Iron Age to Late Medieval (500 BCE–1800 CE) · Nok–Koro–Atyap continuum
Kajuru Hills are dramatic inselberg hillforts above southern Kaduna plain, occupied Nok-terminal to Koro–Atyap phases 500 BCE–1800 CE, with dry-stone terracing and hilltop granaries akin to Sukur's…
🇱🇧 Lebanon · Ancient city
Bronze Age to Ottoman (c.2750 BCE–present; Phoenician peak 1100–332 BCE) · Phoenician / Persian / Hellenistic / Roman / Byzantine / Crusader
Phoenician island-city and legendary birthplace of Europa and Dido, Tyre dominated Mediterranean purple-dye trade.
🇰🇭 Cambodia · Temple complex
Angkor Yasodharapura 889–928 · Hindu Shaiva (Linga)
Mountain-temple on 65 m natural Bakheng hill (c.889–910 CE, Yasovarman I) at centre of first Angkor capital Yasodharapura, five-tier pyramid with 108 shrines plus central quincunx representing Mt.
🇹🇳 Tunisia · Ancient city
Punic/Numidian to Byzantine (2nd c. BCE–7th c. CE; peak 2nd–5th c. CE) · Numidian / Roman / Byzantine
Vazi Sarara (Henchir Bez) is an inland Byzacena/ Africa Proconsularis colonia on the Siliana plain, founded as peregrine civitas and promoted colonia under Probus.
🇯🇵 Japan · Megalith
Late Jomon (c.1500 BCE) · Late Jomon
Sea-bluff Jomon stone circle (1500 BCE, 33×22 m oval, 440 stones) — burial and market above Sea of Japan.
🇵🇪 Peru · Archaeological wonder
Wari to Inca 1000–1532 CE · Wari–Cusco–Inca
Terraced Wari–Inca ushnu spring shrine on Cusco–Abancay road, 1000–1532 CE.
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Archaeological wonder
Maya Preclassic 1400 BCE–100 CE · Maya (Mirador Basin Preclassic)
46-m Preclassic triadic pyramid, earliest monumental Maya 1400 BCE.
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Middle Horizon to Late Intermediate ~900–1450 CE · Wari to Collagua / Inca fringe
5,000-boulder petroglyph desert - world's densest - Wari-Collagua dancers over 10 km².
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Archaeological wonder
Saka (400–200 BCE) · Saka (Issyk–Tasmola, East Scythian)
Six-meter stone mound on the Talgar fan where Kemal Akishev in 1969 recovered an undisturbed side cist containing an 18-year-old Saka prince clad in 4,000 gold plaques depicting leopard, ibex and…
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Gupta Classical Golden Age 320–550 CE · Brahminical Hindu (Vaishnava) with Jain retain
Gupta imperial rock-cut shrine cluster (4th–5th c. CE) on Vidisha sandstone ridge, 20 caves including Cave 5 — colossal 4 m monolithic Varaha (boar) avatar rescuing Bhudevi, symbolising Gupta king…
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Magdalenian ~13 ka BP · Magdalenian
8 km mammoth gallery with 158 manganese woolly-mammoth figures and children's finger fluting.
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Bronze Age to Turkic (~2000 BCE – 800 CE) · Andronovo, Saka, Turkic nomadic
Elevated 3,200-m boulder field on the Ferghana ridge preserving perhaps 107,000 images on 10,000 varnished basalt boulders, making it among the most numerous rock-art locales on earth.
🇪🇸 Spain · Archaeological wonder
The Lazarraga Palace (Basque: Lazarragatarren jauregia, Spanish: Palacio Lazarraga) is a palace located in Zalduondo, Álava, Basque Country, Spain. It was declared Bien de Interés Cultural in 1984.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Archaeological wonder
Scythian Pazyryk phase (~400–250 BCE) · Saka/Pazyryk (East Kazakh nomadic)
Seventy burial mounds in the Bukhtarma valley of the Altai where Canadian–Kazakh teams uncovered horse sacrifices wearing antlered ibex-horn masks transforming them into griffins.
🇲🇳 Mongolia · Rock art
Upper Paleolithic to Mesolithic (19,000–8000 BCE) · Malta-Buret related early Holocene hunter
Sun-facing lower gallery with 15 ka ibex/ostrich ochre and pecked figures 220 m below main cave.