🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Stratonikeia and Lagina Sanctuary of Hekate
Hellenistic to Roman Imperial 281 BCE–300 CE · Seleucid Greek over Carian; later Roman
Seleucid league city and Hekate crossroads sanctuary linked by 8 km sacred way with frieze.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Tell Brak (Nagar) (Al-Hasakah Governorate, Khabur Triangle)
Chalcolithic to Mitanni-Akkadian to Late Bronze · North Mesopotamian (Uruk → Akkadian → Hurrian)
Huge early city ('city without a state' per Oates) occupied 6000 BCE–1300 CE, peaking as Nagar kingdom (2600–2200 BCE) with Mitanni palace (1500 BCE) and Akkadian Naram-Sin palace.
🇪🇸 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.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Altıntepe
Urartian Kingdom 8th–6th century BCE (late empire western frontier) · Urartian → Median → Achaemenid
Argishti II's Euphrates citadel with pillared hall, subterranean passage and ivory tombs.
🇸🇩 Sudan · Ancient city
Old Dongola
Medieval Christian–Islamic Nubia (500–1317 CE; peak 800–12th c.) · Makuria (Christian Nubia) / Islamic
Old Dongola on Nile opposite Letti is Makuria Christian Nubia's capital 500–1317 CE, 45 ha walled town with colonnaded citadel, palace of Ioannes (11th c.) 28×18 m with frescoes, five churches…
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Ebla
Early Bronze IVA–B (2400–1600 BCE) · Eblaite Semitic (Northwest Semitic)
Syrian superpower Ebla (c.3500–1600 BCE) with double-walled city (60 ha) and Royal Palace G — where Paolo Matthiae 1975 found the Ebla archive: 17,000 cuneiform tablets in Sumerian and Eblaite…
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Meenakshi Amman Temple
Early Pandya origins 6th c., current Nayak 1623–1655 CE · Hindu (Shavite-Shakti) under Nayak kingdom of Madurai
Sprawling Nayak temple-city with 14 colourful gopurams and musical stone pillars.
🇲🇳 Mongolia · Megalith
Khirigsuur Burial Complexes
Late Bronze Age (~1400–700 BCE) · Khirigsuur culture (Mongolian pastoralist)
Mounded circular stone platforms 2–20 m diameter surrounded by rectangular or polygonal enclosures with four cardinal knolls, often associated with deer stones and slab burials.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Hydraulic works
Shunet el-Zebib, Abydos
Early Dynastic 2nd Dynasty ~2750 BCE · Early Egyptian Dynastic
2750 BCE 137 m mudbrick enclosure - Egypt's oldest monumental walls prototyping pyramid complex.
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Tepe Qabrestan
Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age (c.5000–2900 BCE) · Qazvin plain Chalcolithic (Zagheh–Qabrestan)
Qazvin tell 12 m high (c.5000–2900 BCE, Zagheh→Qabrestan, cemetery) south of Qazvin.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Earthwork
Bokoni Stone-Walled Terraces
Late Iron Age (1500–1820 CE; peak 1700–1820) · Eastern Sotho (Bokoni)
Bokoni (Koni) terraces in Mpumalanga escarpment are 150 ha dry-stone agricultural terraces 16th–19th c., built by Eastern Sotho Bokoni people on hillslopes with road causeways and stock kraal…
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Chia Sabz
Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age (c.4000–2700 BCE) · Seimareh valley Chalcolithic → Transcaucasian Early Bronze
Seimareh cemetery mound 15 ha (140 EB cist graves, bronze daggers, c.4–3 ka) in Seimareh valley.
🇵🇹 Portugal · Rock art
Côa Valley Rock Art
Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (~25,000 BCE – 1000 BCE; main 20,000–10,000 BCE) · Solutrean/Magdalenian to Atlantic Iron Age
Largest open-air Paleolithic art complex known, spread over 17 km of the Côa tributary with over 1,000 engraved schist panels bearing thousands of zoomorphs.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Temple complex
Saqqara – Serapeum and Step Pyramid Complex
Early Dynastic to Greco-Roman (Djoser 2670 BCE; Apis catacombs New Kingdom to Ptolemaic, 1400–30 BCE) · Egyptian Pharaonic (Memphite)
Great necropolis of Memphis: Step Pyramid of Djoser (Imhotep, 2670 BCE) – world's oldest large stone structure – plus 17 pyramids including Teti, Unas (Pyramid Texts), underground galleries, and the…
🇮🇷 Iran · Tell
Tall-i Bakun A
Late Chalcolithic (4000–3500 BCE, Bakun) · Bakun A Chalcolithic
Late Chalcolithic (4000–3500 BCE, Bakun) Bakun A Chalcolithic tell at Fars Province, Persepolis plain – proto-urban chalcolithic painted-pottery centre (dims Mound 2 ha, Bakun A workshops).
🇨🇳 China · Rock-cut
Maijishan Eastern Cliff — Tianshui Stacked Grottoes East Face
Later Qin to Song (384 – 1279 CE) · Buddhist Hexi to Central Plains transition at Wei River gap
East face stacked 90 caves 142 m hill with 16 m Buddha and plankway tiers.
🇱🇧 Lebanon · Tell
Tell Fadous-Kfarabida
Early Bronze I–III (with Late Chalcolithic) · Early Bronze Levantine (coastal Canaanite)
EB I–III (3200–2500 BCE) coastal village with Egyptian imports — Lebanon's finest EB chronology.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Ancient city
Arslantepe (Malatya)
Late Chalcolithic to Neo-Hittite (5000 BCE–700 BCE; palace phase 3400–3000 BCE; Neo-Hittite 1200–712 BCE) · Late Chalcolithic / Kura-Araxes / Hittite / Neo-Hittite
Tell city type site for emergence of state and palace economy (3400–3000 BCE): Late Chalcolithic palace (Room A 900) with wall paintings, storerooms with mass-produced bowls, sword hoard (earliest…
🇲🇽 Mexico · Temple complex
El Palmar — Second Temple Plaza (Jimbal–Palmar)
Late Classic 550–850 CE · Maya (Río Bec–Chenes–Central Petén blend)
Secondary plaza 600 m from hieroglyphic stairway: 15 m pyramid with Wak alliance altar, marsh causeway.
🇺🇸 United States · Rock art
Pipestone National Monument Quarries
Archaic to present (1000 BCE–present) · Sioux (Dakota/Lakota/Nakota), Oneota predecessors
2,000-year sacred catlinite quarries: 3000 pits in Sioux quartzite cliff plus thunderbird petroglyphs.
🇸🇾 Syria · Ancient city
Tell Munbaqa
Early–Late Bronze Age (c.2400–1000 BCE) · Syrian Bronze Age (Ekalte)
Euphrates walled city 20 ha (2.5 km double wall, Ekalte Old Babylonian tablets) near Tabqa Lake.
🇳🇴 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.
🇵🇪 Peru · Pyramid
Cahuachi Adobe Pyramids
Early Nazca / Protopalpa 400 BCE–450 CE (peak 100 BCE–300 CE) · Nazca (Paracas → Nazca)
Ceremonial capital of Nazca culture (400 BCE–450 CE) with 40 adobe mounds over 150 ha, including Great Pyramid 28 m high (150 × 100 m base, 3 platforms) and Temple Hill pyramid 20 m.
🇪🇸 Spain · Rock art
Siega Verde Rock Art
Gravettian to Magdalenian ~20–11 ka BP · Upper Paleolithic Iberian
2 km open-air schist engravings paired with Côa Valley, 443 Paleolithic pecked figures.