Verified, partially excavated places

🇪🇬 Egypt · Archaeological wonder

Abu Mena

Late Roman to Early Byzantine 4th–7th c. CE, peak 5th–6th c. · Coptic Christian / Byzantine Egyptian

Desert pilgrimage city of Saint Menas, 4th–7th c., now endangered by water table rise.

🇮🇱 Israel · Ancient village

Abu Gosh

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to Pottery Neolithic (7600–5500 BCE) · Southern Levant PPNB → Yarmoukian (Pottery Neolithic)

Judean Hills PPNB ridge village with goat domestication ancient DNA archive.

🇬🇹 Guatemala · Ancient city

Wakna (Güiro)

Middle to Late Preclassic Mirador 600 BCE–150 CE · Maya (Mirador Basin)

Formerly Güiro, renamed Wakna: massive Triadic Acropolis (25 m pyramid on 70 m platform) with three temples and deep aguada (reservoir) 80 m diameter excavated into bedrock.

🇲🇳 Mongolia · Archaeological wonder

Noin-Ula Kurgans

Xiongnu Empire (~200 BCE – 100 CE) · Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu nomadic empire)

Forested ridge north of Ulaanbaatar concealing over 200 deep shaft-tombs (6–18 m deep) of the Xiongnu steppe empire that confronted Han China.

🇺🇸 United States · Earthwork

Etowah Indian Mounds

Mississippian, Etowah phase 1000–1550 CE · Mississippian (Muscogean ancestors)

19-m Mississippian Temple mound with copper falcon plates and marble effigies.

🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid

Ziggurat of Etemenanki (Tower of Babel)

Old Babylonian to Neo-Babylonian · Babylonian

Neo-Babylonian ziggurat of Marduk at Babylon — Etemenanki 'House of Heaven-Earth' — 91 m seven-stage prototype of Tower of Babel, rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II.

🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Ancient city

Ak-Beshim Chu Valley City

Sogdian 5th c → Western Turk 581–659 → Tang 659–1141 · Sogdian–Western Turk → Tang Chinese — Chuy Valley Silk Road

Ak-Beshim Chu Valley City — ancient Suyab/Suye (5th–12th c CE) Western Turk capital on Chu River at Ak-Beshim, 8 km SW Tokmok, excavated 1938–58 by Bernshtam and 2010s Kyrgyz-German.

🇸🇾 Syria · Archaeological wonder

Citadel of Aleppo

3rd millennium BCE to present (Yamhad Bronze Age peak; current fortress 12th–13th c CE) · Amorite (Yamhad) / Hittite / Neo-Hittite / Hellenistic / Ayyubid / Mamluk / Ottoman

One of the oldest continuously fortified mounds in the world, Aleppo citadel occupies a 45 m-high tell (Yamhad kingdom capital c.1800 BCE).

🇴🇲 Oman · Archaeological wonder

Ubar (Ubaruq) Mustatil Field — Rub al Khali eastern edge (Shisr–Mudayy)

Neolithic (Arabian Humid Period, 5300–5000 BCE) · East Arabian Neolithic (Ubar–Wusta pastoral, Humid Period)

30 large mustatils (5300–5000 BCE) at Ubar — easternmost Rub al Khali cattle-cult province.

🇧🇷 Brazil · Earthwork

Marajoara Mounds (Teso dos Bichos)

Marajoara Phase (Polychrome Tradition) · Marajoara (Arauan-derived Amazonian Polychrome)

Marajoara chiefdom mounds (800–1400 CE)—40-m tesos and funerary urn fields on Amazon's delta island.

🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid

Anu Ziggurat and Eanna Precinct of Uruk

Uruk Period (c. 4000–3100 BCE) → Jemdet Nasr → Early Dynastic; Anu ziggurat Late Uruk · Sumerian (Uruk)

Twin sacred precincts of world's first city Uruk (4000–3100 BCE): Anu District with White Temple ziggurat (21 m high limestone platform, U period) and Stone Cone Temple mosaic; Eanna District with…

🇨🇳 China · Temple complex

Yungang Grottoes

Northern Wei 460–525 CE (Tanyao 460–465, later sinicized 471–524) · Xianbei Northern Wei Buddhist

45 major caves on 1-km sandstone cliff with 51,000 statues (460–524 CE) of Northern Wei before capital moved to Luoyang.

🇺🇿 Uzbekistan · Ancient city

Historic Centre of Bukhara

Samanid to Shaybanid 9th–16th c (settled from 1st c CE) · Samanid / Qarakhanid / Shaybanid Islamic (Persian)

2000-year-old Silk Road oasis city preserved as intact medieval Islamic townscape with 140+ monuments.

🇬🇪 Georgia · Rock-cut

Uplistsikhe — Rock-Cut City of the Kura

Iron Age to High Medieval (Kartli kingdom 300 BCE–1240 CE) · Kartli Iberian; pagan solar, then Christian Georgian (Bagrations), Zoroastrian? overlay

1000 BCE–13th c. Kartli city 150 caves on Mtkvari: sun temple, Tamar hall, qvevri wine, secret river channel.

🇷🇺 Russia · Rock art

Shishkino Petroglyphs — Upper Lena Pillars Rock Art

Neolithic to Iron Age · Isakovo, Serovo, Kitoi, Glazkovo, Kurumchin

Upper Lena 3.5-km sandstone pillars with 2000 Neolithic–Iron elk, boats and shaman-horses, Okladnikov's type site.

🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art

Cholpon-Ata Petroglyph Open-Air Museum

Bronze Age to Early Medieval (Andronovo to Göktürk) · Andronovo, Saka (Scythian), Wusun and Turkic nomads

Issyk-Kul glacial boulder field with 2000 petroglyphs 2000 BCE–800 CE and lake panorama.

🇲🇦 Morocco · Ancient village

Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou

Almoravid to modern (11th c–20th c; present fabric 17th–19th c) · Berber (Haratine) / Almoravid / Saadi

Fortified earthen ksar on Trans-Saharan caravan road with pisé towers, agadir granary and geometric clay façades.

🇨🇳 China · Ancient village

Hemudu Archaeological Site

Hemudu culture 5500–3300 BCE · Hemudu (Hangzhou Bay maritime rice farmers)

Waterlogged neolithic pile-dwelling settlement (5500–3300 BCE) on Yao River coastal plain, type-site of Hemudu culture famous for earliest Chinese rice cultivation (paddy with wooden plough),…

🇯🇵 Japan · Rock art

Fugoppe Cave

Late Jomon to Epi-Jomon / Zoku-Jomon (c.300 BCE–350 CE, figures ~1600 BP) · Zoku-Jomon

Zoku-Jomon rock art cave (800 engravings, ~1600 BP) — winged figures pecked into soft Miocene tuff on Maruyama Hill.

🇪🇬 Egypt · Archaeological wonder

Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria

Hellenistic Ptolemaic 297–280 BCE · Greek (Ptolemaic Alexandria)

100-m Ptolemaic lighthouse wonder whose lantern guided ancient Mediterranean.

🇮🇶 Iraq · Pyramid

Eridu Ziggurat — Abu Shahrain

Ubaid through Ur III (c.5400–2000 BCE, ziggurat Ur III Amar-Sin) · Sumerian (Eridu / Ubaid type-site, Ur III)

Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrain) is traditionally the first city of Sumer (King List) with an 18-level temple sequence from Ubaid small shrine (≈5400 BCE) to Ur III ziggurat of Amar-Sin.