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CategoriesRock art sites
Paintings and engravings from the deepest human past.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Rock art
Iron Age to Early Modern (1000 BCE – 18th c. CE) · Saka (Scythian), Wusun, Turkic, Oirat-Dzungar Tibetan Buddhist
Ili granite cliff with 1677 Tibetan Bodhisattvas and Saka-Turkic palimpsest.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Late Bronze to Turkic Early Medieval · Northern Ordos, Xiongnu, Xianbei
Central ridge above Dahekou gorge bridging Yinshan naturalism and Helan mask styles.
🇿🇲 Zambia · Rock art
Lower Paleolithic to Iron Age (Acheulean to Iron) · Acheulean → Sangoan/Lupemban → Magosian → Iron Age
221-m Kalambo waterfall with 476,000-year-old notched-log structure — earliest wood building.
🇹🇿 Tanzania · Ancient village
Middle Stone Age to Later Stone Age to Pastoral Neolithic · MSA → LSA foragers → Pastoral Neolithic
130-ka Eyasi rockshelter Mumba with 18 burials and Still Bay to LSA microlith transition.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Neolithic to Medieval (Hongshan to Liao-Jin) · Hongshan, Lower Xiajiadian, Ordos and Khitan Liao
Eastern Yinshan steppe granite with 3000 Neolithic–Khitan images, Hongshan–Yinshan bridge.
🇰🇭 Cambodia · Archaeological wonder
Late Pleistocene Hoabinhian (71–11 ka) → Early Holocene → Neolithic 3600 BCE · Hoabinhian (Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer) → Neolithic Austroasiatic
Hoabinhian–Neolithic rockshelter (c.80000–5000 BP) on Sampov karst hill near Battambang, Cambodia — 1 ha shelter with stratified Hoabinhian lithics (cobble tools, sumatraliths, edge-ground axes),…
🇨🇱 Chile · Geoglyph
Late Formative to Late Intermediate (700–1500 CE) · Atacameño, Tarapacá and Altiplano caravan cultures
400 Atacama caravan geoglyphs (700–1500 CE) etched in desert varnish above the Tamarugal pampa.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Archaeological wonder
Early Dynastic to Late Period (2950–650 BCE; decorated peak Middle Kingdom) · Ancient Egyptian / Coptic
Hare nome necropolis with Djehutihotep colossus sledge 172 men and earliest Book of Two Ways coffins.
🇰🇷 South Korea · Rock art
Neolithic 4000 BCE → Bronze Age → Silla 6th–9th c CE · Korean Neolithic → Bronze Age → Silla (Unified Silla)
Cheonjeon-ri — Neolithic–Silla rock art panel (c.4000 BCE–9th c CE palimpsest) 30 km west Ulsan, Ulju County, Daegok-cheon stream bank, excavated 1970–73 Mun Myeong-dae.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Early Holocene to Camel Period (Pastoral/Horse/Camel) · Pastoral Saharan / Garamantine / Tuareg
Archetypal Saharan wadi gallery Mathendous with Bubalus-to-Camel engravings of extinct megafauna.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Archaeological wonder
Old to Middle Kingdom (2350–1750 BCE; painted peak Twelfth Dynasty) · Ancient Egyptian
39 nomarch cliff tombs 2100–1750 BCE with Asiatic caravan 37 and wrestling 219 pairs proto-Doric.
🇳🇦 Namibia · Rock art
Later Stone Age to Recent (130 ka occupation; paintings 2000 BCE–1000 CE) · San hunter-gatherers (Damara area ancestors)
2,573 m inselberg with >1,000 rock shelters, including Maack 'White Lady' 2,000 BCE shaman panel and 45,000 individual paintings.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Pleistocene to Islamic (Middle Stone Age to Camel Period) · Bubalus hunter-gatherers / Pastoralists / Garamantes / Tuareg
350-km sandstone cuesta Messak Settafet — 15,000 engravings and lithic quarries spanning 12 ka.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Early Holocene to Mid-Holocene (10,000–3000 BCE) · African Humid Period Pastoral (Early/Middle Holocene)
80-m acacus shelter with 7000 BCE feather-cape mummies and earliest African dairy 8200 BP lipids.
🇮🇹 Italy · Rock art
Nuragic Iron Age (Early Iron, c.950–730 BCE) · Nuragic Iron Age (Sinis, Orientalizing influence)
Monte Prama (Nuragic Iron Age c.950–730 BCE) on the Sinis Peninsula near Cabras is a sacred heroon cemetery where 5,178 fragments of 2–2.5-m limestone boxers, archers and warriors with horned helmets…
🇪🇬 Egypt · Rock art
Predynastic to Roman (3200 BCE–364 CE; peak New Kingdom and Ptolemaic) · Ancient Egyptian
Granite islet with ~600 cataract boulder inscriptions including Famine Stela 32 columns and predynastic boats.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Kurgan
Late Bronze to Early Iron (Andronovo / Saka) + Turkic · Andronovo / Saka / Turkic
Ili River terrace kurgan field (650 m, 43°56′N 75°32′E 43.93,75.53) downstream from Tamgaly UNESCO rock-art gorge (1145), on second terrace above Ili.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Rock art
Classic (c.250–800 CE) Maya Petén – Río Bec fringe · Maya (Petén – Río Bec transitional)
El Resbalón ('the slide') is a hilltop Maya city and open-air epigraphic cliff 35 km SW of Xpujil in the Calakmul Biosphere south at 250 m.
🇬🇳 Guinea · Archaeological wonder
Late Iron to Protohistoric (600–1500 CE) · Proto-Kissi / Sapi
Soapstone 10–40 cm janiform ancestral figures 600–1500 CE in forest-zone rice shrines (200+ recorded).
🇹🇩 Chad · Rock art
Neolithic to Islamic (6000 BCE–16th c CE) · Saharan herders (Bovid, Horse, Camel groups)
600-km Saharan massif with Niola Doa 200-m cattle-horse frieze and 3,000 images 6th millennium–16th c.
🇱🇾 Libya · Rock art
Iron Age to Hellenistic (700 BCE–200 CE) · Libyan (Berber) / Greek
30+ artificial underground caves 4 m deep with Libyan silhouette art and Greek votive 700 BCE–200 CE.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Bronze Age to Early Medieval · Ordos, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Turkic (Yinshan frontier)
West mesa of Wulashan with naturalistic tiger and chariot rut petroglyphs.
🇯🇵 Japan · Megalith
Jomon Mid–Late 2500–1800 BCE (Hokkaido) · Jomon Hokkaido (Oshima–Shakotan)
Hokkaido Jomon stone circle (2500–1800 BCE) at Oshoro Otaru — 30 m with 47 boulders and Fusen rock art above Oshoro Bay.
🇺🇸 United States · Rock art
Late Woodland – Fort Ancient (1000–1650 CE) · Fort Ancient (Late Woodland Mississippian)
Sandstone cliff-face bearing 37 Fort Ancient–culture petroglyphs (1000–1650 CE) incised on Mississippian Black Hand sandstone at edge of unglaciated Allegheny Plateau.
