Roman, buried 79 CE
A Roman city frozen in time when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, burying it under 4–6 m of ash and pumice.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic, c. 9500 BCE
T-shaped megalithic pillars carved with animals — built by hunter-gatherers over 11,000 years ago, before pottery, writing, or farming.
Inca, c. 1450 CE
A 15th-century Inca citadel in the Andes at 2,430 m, likely built as a royal estate for emperor Pachacuti.
Old Kingdom, c. 2580–2510 BCE
The Great Pyramid of Khufu, the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure, and the Great Sphinx, on the western edge of the Nile.
Stonehenge
Salisbury Plain, United Kingdom
Neolithic & Bronze Age, c. 3000–1600 BCE
A ring of standing sarsen stones with smaller bluestones, built and rebuilt over more than a millennium.
Mesoamerican, c. 100 BCE – 550 CE
A massive pre-Aztec city with the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, and the Avenue of the Dead.
Petra
Ma'an Governorate, Jordan
Nabataean, c. 4th c. BCE – 2nd c. CE
A rose-red city carved into sandstone cliffs, capital of the Nabataean trading kingdom.
Khmer, early 12th century CE
The largest religious monument in the world, built by King Suryavarman II as a Hindu temple to Vishnu.
Maya / Toltec, c. 600–1200 CE
A major Maya city dominated by El Castillo (the pyramid of Kukulcán), with a famous equinox shadow serpent.
Upper Paleolithic, c. 17,000 BCE
A cave system painted with hundreds of vivid Paleolithic images of horses, aurochs, and deer.
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
Thousands of life-sized clay soldiers, horses, and chariots buried with China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang.
Ancestral Puebloan, c. 1190–1300 CE
Sandstone cliff dwellings tucked under canyon overhangs, with kivas, towers, and storage rooms.