🇫🇷 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.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Zuojiang Huashan Ningming — Luoyue Serpent Cliff
Warring States to Eastern Han (403 BCE – 220 CE) · Luoyue (proto-Zhuang) Boyue culture
Serpent-bend cliff with dragon and drum motifs 8 km upstream from main panel.
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Archaeological wonder
El Zotz
Maya Late Classic 350–900 CE · Maya (Pa'Chan dynasty, Tikal–Teotihuacan linked)
Hilltop city with Diablos Pyramid sun-god masks, 300 BCE–900 CE.
🇨🇳 China · Rock art
Yinshan Wulashan Table Mountain — Southern Scarp Petroglyphs
Neolithic to Xiongnu–Han (3000 BCE – 200 BCE) · Hetao farming to steppe nomad Xiongnu transition
South scarp with 800+ vehicle and mask panels above Hetao bend at 1850 m.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Temple complex
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty c.1479–1458 BCE · Egyptian (New Kingdom, Thutmosid)
Hatshepsut's Djeser-Djeseru (c.1470 BCE) – a three-terraced colonnaded mortuary temple cut into the Theban cliff opposite Karnak, designed by Senenmut.
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan · Rock art
Saimaluu Tash Petroglyphs
Bronze Age to Turkic (~2000 BCE – 800 CE) · Andronovo, Saka, Turkic nomadic
Elevated 3,200-m boulder field on the Ferghana ridge preserving perhaps 107,000 images on 10,000 varnished basalt boulders, making it among the most numerous rock-art locales on earth.
🇲🇦 Morocco · Ancient city
Volubilis
Mauretanian to Early Islamic (3rd c BCE Berber settlement; Roman 25 BCE–285 CE; Idrisid 788 CE) · Mauretanian / Roman / Berber / Early Islamic (Idrisid)
Roman Mauretania Tingitana capital with 42 ha walled city, Volubilis preserves 2nd–3rd c town: Decumanus Maximus 400 m, Forum, Capitol, Basilica, Arch of Caracalla (217 CE erected for Caracalla and…
🇦🇺 Australia · Archaeological wonder
Budj Bim Cultural Landscape
Gunditjmara continuous 6,600–6,000 BCE to present (dated 6,700 BP Muldoon trap) · Gunditjmara Aboriginal Australian
Gunditjmara aquaculture over 6,600 years on Budj Bim basalt lava flow (30,000-year-old volcano) with 750 m of stone channels, weirs and eel traps (kooyang) manipulating Lake Condah wetlands.
🇲🇱 Mali · Temple complex
Great Mosque of Djenné
Medieval to Modern (13th c original; current 1907 reconstruction) · Sudano-Sahelian / Malian / French colonial restoration
World's largest mudbrick (banco) structure, Great Mosque of Djenné dominates island town: 56×56 m, 11 m high, three 34 m minarets with ostrich-egg pinnacles, toron wooden poles for annual…
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan · Archaeological wonder
Berel Kurgans
Scythian Pazyryk phase (~400–250 BCE) · Saka/Pazyryk (East Kazakh nomadic)
Seventy burial mounds in the Bukhtarma valley of the Altai where Canadian–Kazakh teams uncovered horse sacrifices wearing antlered ibex-horn masks transforming them into griffins.
🇪🇹 Ethiopia · Megalith
Tiya Megalithic Stelae Field
Solomonic or late pre-Christian (~1200–1400 CE; contested to 1000 BCE) · Gurage / Sidamo (Ethio-Semitic, Southern Ethiopian megalithic)
One of 160 stelae fields in the Soddo region containing 36 standing pillars, 32 of which are sculpted with swords, paired circles and enigmatic leaf-like motifs up to 3.64 m high.
🇮🇹 Italy · Rock art
Valcamonica Rock Drawings
Paleolithic to Iron Age (8,000 BCE–16th c. CE peak; Epipaleolithic to medieval) · Camunni (Iron Age Alpine) and earlier hunter groups
Valcamonica – 140,000+ petroglyphs carved over 8,000 years (8th millennium BCE–16th c.) across 250 km² Brescia Alps. 8 parks (Naquane 104 rocks, Seradina-Bedolina map).
🇮🇶 Iraq · Ancient city
Hatra
Parthian to Sassanian (c.200 BCE–241 CE) · Parthian-Arab (Hatrene Aramaic) / Hellenistic influence
Fortified Parthian-Arab desert city (2nd c BCE–241 CE) with circular walls 6.4 km circuit resisting Trajan (117) and Septimius Severus (198).
🇲🇳 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.
🇮🇩 Indonesia · Temple complex
Borobudur
Medang Kingdom Sailendra 780–835 CE · Mahayana Buddhist under Sailendra dynasty central Java
World's largest Buddhist Mandala mountain with 72 latticed stupas.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Archaeological wonder
Bouldnor Cliff Mesolithic Submerged Floor North — Alexandria Coast (Alexandria)
Iron Age (1200 BCE–500 CE) · Medieval
Bouldnor Cliff Mesolithic Submerged Floor North in Alexandria Coast, Egypt is a Iron Age (1200 BCE–500 CE) archaeological wonder attributed to Medieval culture.
🇵🇪 Peru · Geoglyph
Chaviña Pampa Colorada Northwest Geoglyphs (Pampa Colorada NW Extension)
Early Intermediate–Middle Horizon transition (500–750 CE) · Huarpa–Wari
Northwest lobe of Pampa Colorada (3,300 m) extending toward Cora Cora trail. Fourteen figures: 30-m ‘scepter’ (shaft + disc), 16-m condor silhouette, and 80-m bifurcating avenue.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Archaeological wonder
Dzibilnocac
Maya Classic Late 500–800 CE · Maya (Río Bec–Chenes transitional)
76-m Temple-Palace with painted 147 m² vault fresco, 500–800 CE.
🇮🇷 Iran · Archaeological wonder
Naqsh-e Rostam
Achaemenid to Sassanian (Tombs 522–404 BCE; Sassanian reliefs 224–651 CE) · Achaemenid Persian / Sassanian
Achaemenid royal necropolis: four cruciform tombs cut into Haji Abad cliff – Darius I (522–486 BCE), Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, Darius II – with columned facades and relief of king before Ahuramazda and…
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia · Archaeological wonder
Dadan – Kingdom of Lihyan at AlUla
Iron Age to Classical (800 BCE – 100 CE) · Dedanite / Lihyanite (North Arabian)
Twin tells of Umm Daraj and Al-Khuraiba flanking the AlUla oasis, whose cliffs hide the rock-cut Lion Tombs – two unfinished effigies of couchant lions only 4 m long, unique in Arabia.
🇹🇩 Chad · Rock art
Ennedi Plateau Rock Art Chad
Holocene 6000 BCE–500 CE · Saharan pastoral (Ennedi tradition)
Ennedi Massif – Chad's sandstone guelta maze (UNESCO 2016 natural/cultural) with 115 painted and engraved sites (6000 BCE–500 CE): Manda Guili camel caravan, Tarso rolling-hills cattle pastoral,…
🇪🇬 Egypt · Ancient city
Hierakonpolis Enclosure (Kom el-Ahmar Town Wall)
Predynastic to Old Kingdom (3800–2686 BCE) · Egyptian (Predynastic–Early Dynastic)
Fortified Early Dynastic town wall enclosing palace and world's oldest brewery.
🇵🇪 Peru · Megalith
Revash Mausoleums
Late Intermediate Chachapoya 1100–1470 CE · Chachapoya
Red-painted cliff chullpa houses 4–5 m tall, 1100–1470 CE Chachapoya.
🇯🇵 Japan · Ancient village
Chitose Bibi Sites
Jomon (Early to Late, 5000–400 BCE, key Bibi IV Early Jomon) · Jomon (Hokkaido)
Jomon watershed village cluster on Chitose–Bibi portage — Bibi-chan animal figurine and Jomon masks (5000–400 BCE).