🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Sonari
Mauryan 3rd c BCE → Sunga 2nd c BCE → Gupta 5th c · Mauryan Buddhist sangha → Sunga
Sanchi mandala outlier 10 km SW — 8 stupas (Stupa 2 relic casket, Brahmi) on Betwa ridge.
🇦🇲 Armenia · Temple complex
Echmiadzin Cathedral and Churches — Vagharshapat
Early Christian Armenian (301–650 CE) · Early Armenian Apostolic; Urartian–Hellenistic pagan predecessor
301 CE Gregory the Illuminator's cathedral over Tir temple — world's oldest state church, Hripsime 618 tetraconch.
🇬🇹 Guatemala · Ancient city
El Tintal
Middle to Late Preclassic 700 BCE–150 CE (Preclassic fluorescence, collapsed c.150 CE Mirador hiatus) · Maya (Preclassic Mirador Basin state, Late Preclassic centralized polity)
Second-largest Preclassic Maya city after El Mirador (700 BCE–400 CE, 30 km southeast of Mirador): 250 m-high-adjacent Henequén pyramid (60 m high ×190×165 m, seventh-tallest Maya pyramid), Mano de…
🇮🇳 India · Temple complex
Udayagiri Caves
Gupta Classical (Chandragupta II to Kumaragupta) 320–550 CE · Gupta
Gupta’s open-air bible — 20 sandstone caves with Varaha (402 CE) and Durga, Chandragupta II's inscriptions on Udayagiri Hill.
🇧🇿 Belize · Ancient village
Cuello
Early Preclassic – Classic (c.1200 BCE–900 CE) Preclassic Maya · Maya (Lowland Preclassic)
Cuello lies on the Cuello estate adjacent to the Cuello rum distillery 2 km west of Orange Walk, north Belize, at 30 m.
🇬🇷 Greece · Temple complex
Erechtheion — Acropolis of Athens
Late Classical (Peloponnesian War) · Classical Athenian
421–405 BCE asymmetric Ionic with Caryatids, housing Athena Polias and Poseidon-Erechtheus on Mycenaean terrace.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Buried city
Narmouthis — Crocodile Temple Quarter at Medinat Ghoran (Fayum Central)
Middle Kingdom to Late Roman (1800 BCE – 350 CE) · Egyptian / Greco-Roman Fayum
Crocodile temple quarter of Narmouthis 1–2 m buried at Medinat Ghoran — Renenutet birth-house and sacred lake 40×30 m.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Buried city
Narmouthis — Crocodile Temple Quarter at Medinat Ghoran (Fayum Central) — v2
Middle Kingdom to Late Roman (1800 BCE – 350 CE) · Egyptian / Greco-Roman Fayum
Crocodile temple quarter of Narmouthis 1–2 m buried at Medinat Ghoran — Renenutet birth-house and sacred lake 40×30 m.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Belevi Mausoleum — Ephesus Royal Tomb
Hellenistic (Lysimachus to Seleucid) · Hellenistic Macedonian-Anatolian
29-m Diadochi mausoleum 14 km NE Ephesus for Lysimachus/Antiochus II with 28 columns and griffin coffers, 301–246 BCE.
🇲🇱 Mali · Ancient city
Timbuktu (Sankore, Djingareyber & Sidi Yahya)
Medieval Sudanic (11th–17th c; peak 14th–16th c under Mali-Songhai) · Tuareg / Soninke / Malinke / Songhai / Berber / Moroccan (Arma)
Scholar caravan metropolis on Niger Bend with three 14th-c earthen Sudano-Sahelian mosques and 600,000-manuscript university Sankore.
🇬🇷 Greece · Temple complex
Kamiros Temple of Athena Polias — Rhodes Hilltop Terrace
Archaic to Hellenistic · Dorian Rhodian
NW Rhodes hilltop Doric Athena Polias above Hellenistic fountain agora with 200-m aqueduct, 6th BCE–408 synoecism.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Halicarnassus Mausoleum Terrace — Bodrum Hill Top Platform
Classical (Hekatomnid Carian) · Carian-Hellenic dynastic
Podium terrace of Aristotle's pupil Satrap Mausolus' wonder-tomb 353 BCE in Bodrum, 45-m wonder with 36 Ionic columns.
🇮🇷 Iran · Temple complex
Taq-e Bostan Rock Reliefs
Sassanian Empire (224–651 CE), late Sassanian zenith · Sassanian Zoroastrian (Ahura Mazda, Anahita, Mithra) court art
Sassanian Zagros spring iwans: Shapur II/III small and Khosrow II great with boar hunt and armored cavalry.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Ancient city
Alta Vista Chalchihuites
Classic – Epiclassic (c.400–850 CE) Chalchihuites – Coyotlatelco frontier · Chalchihuites – Canutillo / Teuchitlán-related frontier
Alta Vista Chalchihuites in northern Zacatecas is Mesoamerica's far-northern Venus frontier town at 2,190 m on the Tropic of Cancer.
🇦🇫 Afghanistan · Temple complex
Mes Aynak
Mauryan 3 c. BCE → Kushan 1–4 c. → Hepthalite 5–6 c. → Turk Shahis 7–9 c. · Gandharan Buddhist → Kabul Shahi Buddhist with metallurgic substrate
Copper-and-Buddhist hill city 40 km SE Kabul (3 c. BCE–9 c. CE) — 400 Buddha statues and 100 ha monasteries atop world's copper shafts.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Teos — Temple of Dionysus and Ancient City
Archaic to Late Antiquity (1000 BCE – 600 CE) · Ionian Greek and Roman / Artists of Dionysus guild
Hermogenes' canonical Dionysus temple 208 BCE — largest Dionysac sanctuary and theatre guild capital.
🇩🇰 Denmark · Ancient city
Gudme
Roman Iron Age → Migration 200–700 (Funen central place peak 300–500) · Funen Iron Age (Fyn central place; pre-Danish Gutar, ‘god's home’ sanctuary)
Gudme (Gudmehjem ‘God's Home’, Gudme–Lundeborg) — Iron Age central-place and beach market (Roman Iron Age 200–500 → Vendel 500–700, peak 300–500 Gundestrup?
🇪🇬 Egypt · Ancient city
Dime es-Sobai (Soknopaiou Nesos)
Ptolemaic to Roman (3rd c BCE–3rd c CE) · Ptolemaic / Roman Egyptian
Lake Qarun crocodile temple town Dime es-Sobai with 320-m lion dromos to harbour.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Herakleia ad Latmos — Athena Temple on Granos Hill
Hellenistic · Hekatomnid Carian, Hellenistic
Lake Bafa gneiss city with 6.5-km Hellenistic walls and 3rd BCE Athena temple above Endymion grotto.
🇪🇨 Ecuador · Ancient city
Pumapungo – Tomebamba
Late Horizon Inca (c.1470–1532 CE) – Cañari antecedents · Inca (Tupaq Yupanki – Wayna Qhapaq) over Cañari
Pumapungo is the Inca palace-garden quarter of Tomebamba, Wayna Qhapaq's planned northern capital in modern Cuenca at 2,550 m.
🇨🇳 China · Rock-cut
Tianlongshan Western Grottoes — Shanxi Western Cliff
Northern Dynasties to Tang · Northern Qi–Tang northern Shanxi Buddhist
Taiyuan Heavenly Dragon western 8-cave extension 560–750 with 1924 removal and scaffolding holes.
🇲🇽 Mexico · Temple complex
Cañada de la Virgen
Epiclassic – Postclassic (c.530–1040 CE) Bajío – Otomi–Toltec: Lerma tradition · Lerma – Bajío / Otomi
Cañada de la Virgen in the Laja valley saddle near San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, is a mountaintop Epiclassic observatory-city (530–1040 CE) of the Bajío–Otomi tradition at 1,950 m.
🇪🇬 Egypt · Temple complex
Temple of Kalabsha (Talmis)
New Kingdom to Roman (1479 BCE–235 CE; freestanding temple essentially Augustan) · Egyptian / Nubian
Augustan New Kalabsha — Nubia's largest freestanding temple (76 m) to Mandulis saved from Nasser.
🇹🇷 Turkey · Temple complex
Temple of Zeus Lepsynos at Euromos
Hellenistic to Antonine (Mylasan Karia) · Carian Greek (Mylasa sphere, later Roman)
Carian olive-grove Corinthian 6×11 with 16 columns upright to architrave, dedication to Zeus Lepsynos.