🇩🇿 Algeria · Ancient city
Tipasa
Phoenician / Roman / Early Christian · Phoenician / Roman / Christian
Phoenician-Roman-Christian cape town with Great 7-aisle basilica (largest in Africa) and St Salsa martyrion.
🇮🇱 Israel · Ancient city
Masada — Desert Fortress of Herod
Hasmonean to Roman (2nd c. BCE–73 CE; Herodian peak) · Hasmonean Jewish → Herodian (Idumaean-Jewish client of Rome) → Sicarii → Roman legion → Byzantine monks
Herod's 440 m mesa fortress over Dead Sea — hanging palaces, desert cisterns and preserved Roman siege ramp.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Pyramid
El-Lisht (Itj-tawy necropolis)
Middle Kingdom (12th Dyn) · Ancient Egyptian
Mit Rahina–Itj-tawy necropolis El-Lisht with pyramids of Amenemhat I and Senwosret I.
🇲🇷 Mauritania · Ancient city
Chinguetti
Medieval to Early Modern (13th–19th c; library peak 17th–18th c) · Berber / Arab / Alkhalid
13th c scholar-ksar with 20-m square minaret and 5 manuscript libraries 1400+ codices.
🇻🇳 Vietnam · Ancient city
Complex of Hue Monuments
Nguyen dynasty 1802–1945 · Vietnamese (Kinh) Nguyen
Nguyen dynasty capital (1802–1945) and last imperial city of Vietnam inside 10 km vauban-style citadel (Kinh Thanh, 1804–1832, 2.5×2.5 km square with 4 m thick bastioned walls copied from French…
🇹🇳 Tunisia · Archaeological wonder
Amphitheatre of El Jem (Thysdrus)
Roman Imperial (c.230–238 CE under Gordian I/II) · Roman (Africano)
Largest amphitheatre in Africa and third-largest in Roman world: olive-oil city Thysdrus (later Gordian revolt 238 CE) built c.238 CE, 149×124 m outer axes, 65×39 m arena, 35,000 capacity seating…
🇹🇷 Turkey · Archaeological wonder
Gordion – Phrygian Capital
Early Phrygian Iron Age (~1200–700 BCE; Midas tumulus ~740 BCE) · Phrygian (Balkan–Anatolian)
Phrygian capital at the Sangarius bend where Rodney Young's Penn excavations revealed a burnt 800 BCE citadel with polished pebble mosaics – the oldest known – and the great Tumulus MM: 53-m high and…
🇯🇵 Japan · Ancient village
Kitakogane Site
Early to Late Jomon 6000–1000 BCE · Early–Late Jomon (Date, Uchiura Bay)
Early to Late Jomon marine midden and ritual site (c.6000–1000 BCE) at Date, Hokkaido — 14.4 ha plateau site with massive shell mound (oyster, Scallop 3 m thick, 2500 m³), 70+ pit dwellings, lacquer…
🇹🇿 Tanzania · Rock art
Kondoa Rock Art Sites
Late Stone Age to recent (~3000 BCE – 19th century CE; most 1500 BCE onward) · Sandawe hunter-gatherer to Bantu pastoralist, later Warangi
Over 150 shelters scattered across the Kondoa escarpment display stratified painting traditions: early naturalistic eland and human figures with elongated heads (hunter-gatherer), later white…
🇬🇷 Greece · Temple complex
Heraion of Samos
Archaic to Roman ~900 BCE–300 CE · Samian Greek (Ionian)
Polycrates' 109 m giant Ionic Heraion - largest attempted Greek temple on Samos plain.
🇹🇿 Tanzania · Archaeological wonder
Olduvai Gorge — Cradle of Humankind
Early Pleistocene to Holocene (2.1 Ma–15 ka Beds I–V) · Paranthropus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus → Maasai
Olduvai Gorge is the 50 km Great Rift tributary gorge (48 m deep) exposing 2.1 Ma to 15 ka stratified sequence where Louis & Mary Leakey found Zinjanthropus (Paranthropus boisei 1.75 Ma), Homo…
🇹🇲 Turkmenistan · Ancient city
Kunya-Urgench Ancient Town
Khwarezmshah to Golden Horde 995–1388 · Khwarezmshah / Seljuk / Golden Horde
Lost capital of Khwarezm in Amu Darya delta, flourishing 10th–14th c. with 60 m Kutlug Timur minaret tallest in Central Asia and Turabek Khanum mausoleum (1360s) with world's most complex girikh dome…
🇲🇷 Mauritania · Ancient city
Ouadane (Wadan)
Medieval to Early Modern (12th–19th c) · Berber (Sanhaja) / Arab / Almoravid
Almoravid twin-ksar 12th c on Adrar scarp with 13-m minaret and caravan cisterns 300 m.
🇱🇾 Libya · Ancient city
Sabratha
Phoenician to Byzantine (c.500 BCE–643 CE; monumental Roman 1st–3rd c CE) · Phoenician / Punic / Hellenistic / Roman / Byzantine
Tripolitanian Phoenician port (5th c BCE) with Hellenistic and then Roman city: Theatre of Sabratha – most complete Roman theatre in Africa (Marcus Aurelius era 175–200 CE, cavea 92.6 m, three-storey…
🇮🇷 Iran · Hydraulic works
Shushtar Hydraulic System
Achaemenid foundation to Sassanian peak (5th century BCE – 3rd century CE) · Achaemenid, Sassanid Persian (with Roman engineering)
Sassanid re-engineering of the Karun River where the Band-e Kaisar (Caesar's Dam) — said built by Roman soldiers captured with Emperor Valerian — diverted the river into the Gargar canal feeding 40…
🇨🇷 Costa Rica · Megalith
Diquís Stone Spheres
Chiriquí period (~600–1500 CE; peak Aguas Buenas 800–1350 CE) · Diquís (Chiriquí, Isthmo-Colombian)
Costa Rica's Diquís Delta preserves over 300 near-perfect spheres of gabbro up to 2.66 m diameter and 16 tonnes, shaped by pecking and grinding until calipers verify sphericity within 2 cm.
🇯🇴 Jordan · Archaeological wonder
Qasr Amra
Umayyad Caliphate (c.711–715 CE) · Umayyad Arab / Byzantine influence
Umayyad desert castle bathhouse (qasr) built by Caliph Walid I (705–715 CE) famous for extensive frescoes: vaulted audience hall with hunting scenes, musicians, six kings (Byzantine, Sasanian,…
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Archaeological wonder
Takalik Abaj
Preclassic to Classic Olmec–Maya transition 800 BCE–900 CE · Olmec to Maya (K'iche' Pacific)
Olmec-Maya transition site with earliest Long Count stela 126 CE.
🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Mound City Group)
Hopewell 1–500 CE (Middle Woodland, peak 100–400 CE) · Hopewell tradition (Scioto Hopewell)
Finest Hopewell enclosure: 13-acre (5.3 ha) flat-topped earthen-walled enclosure (1,211 m perimeter, 1–1.8 m high) near Scioto River enclosing 24 conical, elongated and effigy mounds.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Hydraulic works
Aswan First Cataract — Unfinished Obelisk Quarry Canal
New Kingdom to British (1470 BCE – 1902 CE) · Egyptian New Kingdom with British Aswan regulation
Quarry slipway and basin 150 m to float 42 m Unfinished Obelisk and blocks to Nile.
🇧🇼 Botswana · Rock art
Tsodilo Hills Rock Art
Later Stone Age to recent (~8000 BCE – historical) · San (Basarwa) hunter-gatherer and Bantu pastoralist
Four quartzite inselbergs rising abruptly from the Kalahari sandveldt preserve over 4,500 paintings across 500 sites, dominated by the 1,400-m Male Hill.
🇬🇷 Greece · Temple complex
Olympia Sanctuary
Geometric to Roman 776 BCE–393 CE; classical temple peak 5th c. BCE · Ancient Greek (pan-Hellenic, Eleian administration)
Sacred grove of Zeus and birthplace of Olympic Games with Phidias' Wonder statue temple.
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Sanchi Great Stupa and Temple Complex
Maurya to Gupta (3rd c. BCE–5th c. CE; Great Stupa core 260 BCE, gateway 1st c. BCE) · Mauryan, Sunga, Satavahana, Gupta Buddhist
Great Stupa No.1 at Sanchi – Ashoka's 3rd c. BCE relic mound enlarged to 36m hemispheric brick-and-stone anda, 16m high stone torana gateways (Satavahana 1st c.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia · Megalith
Tiya Megalithic Stelae Field
Solomonic or late pre-Christian (~1200–1400 CE; contested to 1000 BCE) · Gurage / Sidamo (Ethio-Semitic, Southern Ethiopian megalithic)
One of 160 stelae fields in the Soddo region containing 36 standing pillars, 32 of which are sculpted with swords, paired circles and enigmatic leaf-like motifs up to 3.64 m high.