🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Telhara Mahavihara
Gupta to Pala (400–1200 CE) · Gupta to Pala Buddhist (Magadha)
Xuanzang's Teladhaka—250×200 m mound, 5th–12th c continuous, 2009–14 ASI three-storey cells and Hevajra bronze.
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Pyramid
Piedras Negras — Pyramid Complex K-5 and Acropolis (Usumacinta, Guatemala)
Early to Late Classic Maya (250–900 CE) · Maya (Usumacinta basin)
Powerful Classic Maya kingdom capital Yo’k’ib on Usumacinta north bank (450–810 CE) with 8 km² centre.
🇧🇿 Belize · Pyramid
Xunantunich — El Castillo Pyramid (Cayo District, Belize)
Late Classic Maya (600–900 CE) · Maya (Belize River valley)
Dominant Late Classic hilltop capital (600–900 CE) 8 km from Guatemala border atop 45 m limestone ridge giving illusion of height beyond its 25 m constructed mass (total 40 m above plaza).
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Kayalıpınar (ancient Šamuḫa)
Middle Bronze to Iron Age (2000–700 BCE; peak Hittite 1500–1180 BCE) · Hattian → Old Assyrian karum → Hittite → Kaška/Phrygian
Confirmed Šamuḫa on upper Kızılırmak — palace archive and Storm-God cult city of Empire zenith.
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Pyramid
Naachtun Structure XXVII Pyramid (La Perdida)
Early to Late Classic (Kaanul period) · Maya (Kaanul / Tikal sphere)
32 m Late Classic pyramid XXVII at Naachtun — layered Preclassic→Classic pyramid bridging Mirador Basin collapse and Kaanul hegemony c.600 CE.
🇵🇪 Peru · Temple complex
Coricancha (Qorikancha) – Temple of the Sun, Cusco
Late Intermediate – Late Horizon (1200–1533, imperial 1440–1532) · Inca (Manco Capac to Atahualpa)
Supreme Inca sanctuary (c.1200–1533, imperial rebuild Pachacuti c.1440) at heart of Cusco's sacred geography: trapezoidal-walled temenos enclosing Sun Temple curved ashlar wall (6 m high, 55 m long,…
🇸🇩 Sudan · Pyramid
Debeira West — New Kingdom Pyramid Cemetery (Lower Nubia)
New Kingdom to early Kushite (1500–1000 BCE) · Egyptianized Nubian (New Kingdom Egyptian–Nubian elite)
Largely unsalvaged New Kingdom to early Kushite pyramid cemetery 22 km north of Semna system, with 15+ steep mudbrick pyramids (base 8–12 m, height inferred 10–15 m) over shaft tombs of Egyptianized…
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Bharhut Satna Stupa
Mauryan Ashoka → Sunga 3rd–1st c BCE · Sunga Buddhist Hinayana — early narrative sculpture
Bharhut Satna Stupa — Sunga–Satavahana Buddhist stupa (3rd c BCE Ashokan nucleus, 2nd c BCE Sunga rail decoration) at Bharhut 15 km Satna, discovered 1873 by Cunningham with 40 ft stupa, red…
🇸🇩 Sudan · Pyramid
Soleb Temple Pyramid Field — Amenhotep III
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c.1380 BCE (Amenhotep III) · Ancient Egyptian (Nebmaatra Amenhotep III)
Soleb Temple (Nebmaatra — Mansion of Millions of Years) on west bank at Soleb between 2nd-3rd Cataracts: Egypt's largest Nubian temple (134×56 m) built by Amenhotep III for Amun and self-deification.
🇹🇯 Tajikistan · Temple complex
Ajina Tepa
Late Hepthalite 600–700 CE → Tokharistan 700–800 CE (Arab frontier) · Tokharistan Buddhist (Ajina school polychrome late Gandhara–Hephthalite)
Waksh giant Buddhist vihara (7–8 c. CE) near Qurghonteppa — 100×50 m monastery with 12 m Parinirvana Buddha and Turkic mural donors.
🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid
Tepe Gawra — High Temple Platform (Ubaid-Uruk Terrace)
Ubaid to Early Dynastic (5000–2500 BCE), High Temple Late Uruk 3500 BCE · Halaf-Ubaid-Uruk (Northern Mesopotamian)
Tall stratified tell 20 m high near Mosul, with Halaf-Ubaid to Early Dynastic sequence including the monumental High Temple terrace (Late-Uruk, c.3500 BCE) — mudbrick podium 11x10 m with niched…
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
El Rey (Cancún) Maya Port Town
Late Postclassic East Coast (1200–1520 CE, occupied to contact) · Maya (East Coast – Ecab / Cuchbalam)
Postclassic coastal town (1200–1520 CE) directly in Cancún Hotel Zone at km 18 on barrier island between Nichupté Lagoon and Caribbean: ~40 platforms, colonnaded halls and Pyramid Structure 2 (9 m…
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
Bonampak
Late Classic 580–800 CE (mural phase 790–800 CE) · Maya (Usumacinta Basin, dependent of Yaxchilán under Shield Jaguar III)
Small Usumacinta tributary Maya center (~1.5 km²) world-famous for Temple of the Murals (Structure 1): three vaulted rooms with 110 m² of brilliantly preserved frescoes (c.790 CE ‘1000-year pigments’…
🇪🇷 Eritrea · Temple complex
Keskese — Aksumite Ritual Complex
Pre-Aksumite D'mt to Aksumite (800 BCE–400 CE) · D'mt / Pre-Aksumite Eritrean
Keskese is a 1st millennium BCE ritual centre 2 km north of Matara on a highland valley at 2000 m on the Komaile Valley head to the Red Sea.
🇯🇵 Japan · Temple complex
Asukadera (Hōkō-ji)
Asuka 593–710 CE (Suiko–Jomei) · Asuka Buddhist (Baekje immigrant artisan school → Japanese)
Asukadera (Hōkō-ji) — first full Buddhist temple in Japan (596 CE) at Asuka, founded by Soga no Umako with immigrant Baekje artisans (Koreans) per Nihon Shoki.
🇵🇪 Peru · Pyramid
El Purgatorio (Huaca Fortaleza) — Max Andean Pyramid (Casma Valley, Peru)
Late Moche to Middle Horizon / Early Intermediate (600–900 CE dominant) · Casma (Sechín) culture, Moche substrate
Largest single adobe structure in Peru and largest pyramid by volume in the New World — 270 m long, 180 m wide, 30 m high truncated pyramid (4 platforms stepped) dominating Casma plain, debated Late…
🇪🇸 Spain · Temple complex
Cancho Roano — Zalamea de la Serena
Iron Age Orientalizing (Tartessian, c.600–400 BCE) · Tartessian–Phoenician Orientalizing (southwest Iberian)
Cancho Roano (Tartessian–Orientalizing c.600–400 BCE) on the La Serena plain is a unique mudbrick palace-sanctuary, three successive complexes (A–C) built over each other, the final 30 × 20 m…
🇸🇩 Sudan · Pyramid
Kawa Temple T & Pyramidal Tombs (Gematen)
Egyptian New Kingdom extraction to Kushite Napatan/Meroitic · Kushite (25th Dynasty / Napatan / Meroitic)
Kushite holy city at Kawa (Gematen) — Temple T of Taharqa c.683 BCE plus hundreds of small sandstone pyramids 3–7 m for Meroitic elite 700 BCE–400 CE.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
Tenam Puente Maya City
Classic to Early Postclassic (300–1200 CE, walls 900–1200) · Maya (Tojolabal / highland Chiapas)
Fortified Late Classic–Postclassic Maya capital (300–1200 CE, fortification 900–1200) crowning limestone hilltop 250 m above Comitán valley: 60+ structures, walled core (60 ha) with 4.5-m-thick…
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe · Temple complex
Little Great Zimbabwe Fortress A — Great Zimbabwe (57-34)
Neolithic (regional) · Neolithic
Little Great Zimbabwe Fortress A — Great Zimbabwe (57-34) at Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe is a Neolithic (regional) temple complex of the Neolithic tradition, built c.
🇺🇸 United States · Temple complex
Little Chaco Canyon Terrace Outer — Chaco Canyon (55-44)
Medieval (regional) · Medieval
Little Chaco Canyon Terrace Outer — Chaco Canyon (55-44) at Chaco Canyon, United States is a Medieval (regional) temple complex of the Medieval tradition, built c.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Jebel Aruda
Late Uruk (LC5) · Uruk colony cult centre
Uruk hill-citadel (c.3500–3300 BCE) perched 160 m above Euphrates on limestone jebel opposite Habuba — sacred twin controlling Uruk colony from above.
🇺🇸 United States · Temple complex
Sacred Chaco Canyon Mound Inner — Chaco Canyon (55-50)
Neolithic (regional) · Neolithic
Sacred Chaco Canyon Mound Inner — Chaco Canyon (55-50) at Chaco Canyon, United States is a Neolithic (regional) temple complex of the Neolithic tradition, built c.
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Temple complex
Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi
Timurid 1389–1405 over Yasawi 12th c. · Timurid / Sufi Sunni
Colossal Timurid shrine (1389–1405) over 12th-c. Sufi poet Khoja Ahmed Yasawi's grave, commissioned by Timur to draw Islam to steppe, largest brick dome in Central Asia (44 m high, 22 m span) and…