🇪🇬 Egypt · Archaeological wonder
El-Qurn (Theban Peak)
Middle to Late New Kingdom and beyond (2100–1000 BCE cult) · Ancient Egyptian
420-m natural pyramid capping Thebes, shaping Valley of Kings orientation as Ta Dehent.
🇸🇪 Sweden · Megalith
Tanum Rock Carvings (Hällristningar Tanum)
Bronze Age · Nordic Bronze Age (Bohuslän rock art tradition)
UNESCO Bohuslän rock art — 600 panels / 2500 pecked figures (ships, sun, ploughs) on granite, 1700–500 BCE.
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Saimaluu-Tash West Ashu Pass Petroglyphs
Saka to Turkic Medieval · Saka, Wusun, Turkic
Western cirque shelf of Saimaluu-Tash at Ashu Pass, a glacial hanging valley 2 km west of Saimaluu-Tash I main valley floor at 3420 m.
🇵🇪 Peru · Rock art
Checta — Rock Art North Panel (Lima, Peru)
Upper Palaeolithic to Iron Age (30000 BCE–500 CE) · Palaeolithic to Iron Age
Checta — Rock Art North Panel (Lima, Peru) in Lima, Checta, Peru is a Upper Palaeolithic to Iron Age (30000 BCE–500 CE) rock art attributed to Palaeolithic…
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Pedra Furada Rock Art
Pleistocene to Early Holocene · Nordeste Tradition (early Amerind)
Capivara arch shelter heart of 1,150-painting Nordeste tradition with pre-Clovis debate hearths.
🇦🇺 Australia · Rock art
Ubirr Rock Art
Late Pleistocene to present (~4000 BCE – contemporary) · Bininj/Mungguy (Aboriginal Australian)
Five main sandstone galleries on the Nadab floodplain edge of the Arnhem escarpment display the classic X-ray style: translucent kangaroo, emu, long-necked turtles and thylacine (Tasmanian tiger)…
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Serra da Capivara Rock Art
Upper Paleolithic to early Holocene (~25,000 BCE – 2000 BCE disputed; art ~9000 BCE onward) · Paleoindian / early Nordeste tradition; Pedra Furada phase
Semiarid caatinga plateau with over 400 painted shelters bearing perhaps 30,000 figures, among the densest and most narrative rock-art landscapes in the Americas.
🇺🇸 United States · Archaeological wonder
Fajada Butte
Pueblo II–III Bonito 1000–1150 CE · Ancestral Pueblo (Chacoan)
Chacoan Sun Dagger butte: three slabs create dagger beam on spirals marking solstices and lunar standstill.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Font-de-Gaume Cave
Magdalenian ~17–14 ka BP · Magdalenian
Vézère polychrome gallery with 230 Magdalenian figures, last original painted cave open to public.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Tito Bustillo Cave
Solutrean to Magdalenian ~18–11 ka BP · Magdalenian Cantabrian
Ribadesella polychrome Magdalenian cave sealed until 1968 with 14 ka harpoon culture art.
🇳🇴 Norway · Rock art
Alta Rock Art
Late Stone Age to Early Iron Age (~7000 BCE – 0 CE) · Finnmark hunter-gatherer/fisher to early Sami ancestors
Northern Europe's largest petroglyph field preserves some 6,000 carved figures along the Alta Fjord raised shorelines, tracking post-glacial rebound chronology.
🇫🇷 France · Rock art
Rouffignac Cave
Magdalenian ~13 ka BP · Magdalenian
8 km mammoth gallery with 158 manganese woolly-mammoth figures and children's finger fluting.
🇲🇳 Mongolia · Rock art
Khoit Tsenkher South Gallery — Chandmani Base Cave 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.
🇳🇦 Namibia · Rock art
Twyfelfontein Rock Engravings
Late Stone Age to early pastoral (6000 BCE – 1000 CE) · San hunter-gatherer (Ju/'hoansi ancestors)
Namibia's sole UNESCO World Heritage site besides Brandberg, Twyfelfontein holds over 2,500 engravings pecked into a 600-m sandstone outcrop of Etjo formation.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Cave of El Castillo Polychrome
Upper Paleolithic (40,800 BCE Aurignacian to Magdalenian) · Aurignacian, Gravettian, Magdalenian (Homo sapiens & Neanderthal debate)
Cave of El Castillo (Monte Castillo, Puente Viesgo) – UNESCO Paleolithic Cave Art 1985: 40,800-year-old red ochre stencilled hand (U-Th oldest in Europe, possibly Neanderthal), bison, horses, cervids…
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Saimaluu-Tash West Lake Shelf Petroglyphs
Saka to Qarakhanid · Saka, Wusun, Qarakhanid
Lake-margin boulder bar at the tarn below Saimaluu-Tash West cirque, a 400-m shoreline shelf with 180 panels on glacially-rafted quartzite.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Rock art
Tamgaly Kungei Ridge Sanctuary — Aiyrtau Sun Shrine
Bronze Age to Turkic (1400 BCE – 800 CE) · Andronovo to Saka to Turkic
Ridgetop with shaman drum and deer-headdress plus Saka kurgans.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Zuojiang Huashan West Chongzuo Rock Art
Bronze Age to Han · Luoyue / Lạc Việt (ancient Zhuang ancestors), Dian periphery
West bank cliff opposite main Hua Mountain with bronze-drum anthropomorph sequence.
🇧🇷 Brazil · Rock art
Pedra Pintada Cave Lower Panel
Upper Palaeolithic to Iron Age (30000 BCE–500 CE) · Multi-period rock art
Pedra Pintada Cave Lower Panel in Pará, Monte Alegre, Brazil is a Upper Palaeolithic to Iron Age (30000 BCE–500 CE) rock art attributed to Multi-period rock art.
🇮🇹 Italy · Rock art
Val Camonica Rock Art Dos Sotto Panel 44 — Western Terrace
Bronze-Iron Age (2000-500 BCE) · Camunian
Val Camonica Rock Art Dos Sotto Panel 44 — Western Terrace in Lombardy, Brescia, Italy is a Bronze-Iron Age (2000-500 BCE) rock art attributed to Camunian.
🇯🇴 Jordan · Rock art
Wadi Rum Petroglyphs and Thamudic Inscriptions
Neolithic to Islamic (Thamudic–Nabataean–Islamic) · Neolithic pastoralists, Thamudic tribes, Nabataean caravan masters, early Arabs
Wadi Rum desert cliffs with 25,000 petroglyphs and Thamudic texts, UNESCO landscape.
🇲🇱 Mali · Archaeological wonder
Bandiagara Escarpment (Land of the Dogon)
Iron Age to Living (700 BCE–present) · Toloy / Tellem / Dogon
150-km 400-m cliff with 700 Tellem caves 11th–16th c, granaries, Dogon villages and Toloy archaeology.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia · Rock art
Shuwaymis Rock Art – Jebel al-Manjor
Early Holocene humid to Bronze/Thamudic arid · Neolithic hunter-herders to Thamudic caravaneers
UNESCO escarpment with 300 panels—lions on leashed dogs and savanna fauna from Arabia's humid phase.
🇧🇼 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.