Ancient

Abu Simbel Temples

Abu Simbel, Aswan, Egypt

Abu Simbel stands as Egypt's supreme statement of divine kingship carved into living rock....

Abydos

Bani Mansour, Sohag, Egypt

The Temple of Seti I at Abydos contains what many consider the finest carved reliefs in Egyptian history, created at what ancient Egyptians believed was their holiest...

Acemhöyük

Aksaray, Turkey

Acemhöyük is one of Central Anatolia's great Bronze Age palatial sites: two monumental palace complexes, a probable bull cult, and a possible identification with...

Adamkayalar

Mersin, Turkey

In a narrow canyon in the Cilician Taurus foothills, nine niches have been cut into the rock face and filled with carved figures — eleven men, four women, two children, a...

Afqa Cave Spring

Afqa, Mount Lebanon, Lebanon

At Afqa, water emerges from a cave in the Lebanese mountains to feed the Nahr Ibrahim, known in antiquity as the Adonis River.

Alabanda

Aydın, Turkey

Alabanda is a quiet, largely unexcavated Carian city in the hills above the Çine plain, formally declared inviolable sacred territory by the ancient Chrysaorian League....

Alacahöyük

Çorum, Turkey

Alacahöyük holds the earliest expression of Anatolian sacred kingship: royal tombs from 2500 BCE packed with bronze sun disks and bull standards, later crowned by a...

Alalakh

Hatay, Turkey

Alalakh was a Bronze Age city at the crossroads of Amorite, Hurrian, Mitanni, Hittite, and Aegean worlds — destroyed and rebuilt at least eighteen times over eight...

Alatri acropoli

Alatri, Frosinone, Italy

High above the Cosa River valley, the Acropolis of Alatri rises within walls so massive that ancient Greeks believed only the Cyclopes could have built them....

Alinda

Aydın, Turkey

Alinda stands on a twin-acropolis hill above the town of Karpuzlu in Caria, commanding a view across one of Anatolia's most fertile plains....

Alişar Höyük

Yozgat, Turkey

Alişar Höyük is the stratigraphic foundation of Central Anatolian archaeology. When the Oriental Institute of Chicago excavated it systematically in 1927–1932, they...

Altıntepe

Erzincan, Turkey

Altıntepe — 'golden hill' — rises 60 metres above the Upper Euphrates on the Erzincan plain, its volcanic form carrying a Tower-temple to Haldi, a columned audience hall,...

Amisos Hill

Samsun, Turkey

Amisos Hill rises above Samsun on the Turkish Black Sea coast, its summit concealing the golden burial chambers of the Pontus Kingdom elite....

Amphiaraion of Oropos

Oropos, Attica, Greece

Amphiaraion of Oropos is a source-documented healing and oracular sanctuary in Attica, associated with Amphiaraos....

Antiphellos

Antalya, Turkey

Antiphellos was a Lycian harbor city whose ancient necropolis of rock-cut tombs and sarcophagi has never been separated from daily life....

Aperlai

Antalya, Turkey

Aperlai was a Lycian harbor city that produced Tyrian purple — the most valuable dye of antiquity, reserved for emperors and gods — and whose fortification walls now...

Aphrodisias

Karacasu, Aydın, Turkey

Aphrodisias existed because of Aphrodite. The city took her name, lived under her protection, and created the sculptors who gave divine form to marble across the Roman...

Archaeological Site of Palaepaphos

Kouklia, Paphos, Cyprus

Palaepaphos was not a city with a temple. It was a temple that grew into a city....

Ariassus

Antalya, Turkey

Ariassus is a ruined Pisidian and Roman city on a steep hillside above the Döşemealtı district of Antalya, founded in the Hellenistic period and flourishing through the...

Arsameia

Adıyaman, Turkey

Arsameia was the summer capital of the Kingdom of Commagene and the hierothesion — sacred burial precinct — of King Mithridates I Kallinikos, built by his son Antiochos I....

Arslantepe

Malatya, Turkey

Arslantepe is a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Malatya that preserves the oldest known palace on earth and the world's earliest swords....

Arykanda

Antalya, Turkey

Arykanda rises in five terraces against a near-vertical mountain cliff at roughly 1,000 meters in the Taurus range....

Asarkal Rock Tombs

Samsun, Turkey

Above the ancient Halys River — the Kızılırmak — three Hellenistic rock tombs face outward from a high cliff above the Altınkaya reservoir....

Asklepion shrine

Athens, Attica, Greece

On the south slope of the Acropolis, tucked against the rock below the Parthenon, the Asclepieion of Athens preserves the remains of a sanctuary where the sick once came...

Aspendos

Antalya, Turkey

Aspendos is the site of the most intact Roman theatre on earth — its full stage building standing two stories high as it was constructed in the 2nd–3rd century CE, still...

Bagno Grande Thermal Sanctuary

San Casciano dei Bagni, Tuscany, Italy

At Bagno Grande, excavations have revealed an Etruscan and Roman sanctuary organized around a thermal basin.

Banias Sacred Spring

Banias, Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syria

At Banias, water emerges below a cliff and the remains of an ancient sanctuary.

Belintash

Near Mostovo (central Rhodope Mountains), Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Belintash is a bare rock plateau at 1,225 meters in the central Rhodope Mountains, where the Thracian Bessi tribe once maintained a sanctuary to Sabazios, their sky god....

Bent Pyramid

Dahshur, Giza, Egypt

The Bent Pyramid rises from the desert at Dahshur with a silhouette like no other: steep at the base, then abruptly shallower at the 47-meter mark....

Bin Tepe

Manisa, Turkey

Bin Tepe is the royal tumulus cemetery of the Lydian Mermnad dynasty, located on a ridge above Marmara Lake 8 km north of Sardis....

Boljuni Stećak Necropolis

Boljuni, Boljuni, Stolac Municipality, Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Boljuni Stećak Necropolis is a documented archaeological site in Boljuni, Bosnia and Herzegovina, interpreted through ancient ritual and archaeological evidence....

Burunkaya Inscription

Aksaray, Turkey

On a rock outcrop near Aksaray, King Hartapu once declared his divine mandate in Luwian hieroglyphs: 'Great King Hartapu, beloved of the Storm-God......

Bylazora

Sveti Nikole, North Macedonia

Bylazora was the chief city of the ancient Paeonians, a civilization that occupied the Vardar valley before Macedonian expansion and left almost no written record....

Cape Sounion

Lavreotiki Municipal Unit, Attica, Greece

Fifteen white marble columns stand on a headland sixty meters above the sea, marking the southernmost point of Attica....

Çavuştepe

Van, Turkey

A two-tiered royal fortress on a natural ridge southeast of Van, Çavuştepe was built by Sarduri II in the 8th century BC as both military stronghold and sacred precinct....

Claros

İzmir, Turkey

At Claros, on the Ionian coast of what is now western Turkey, a male priest descended each night into a vaulted underground chamber, drank from a sacred spring, and...

Colophon

İzmir, Turkey

Colophon was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League, founded at the end of the second millennium BCE on the hills above the Aegean coast of what is now western...

Colossi of Memnon, Luxor

Al Baairat Village, Luxor, Egypt

For centuries, one of these colossal statues sang at sunrise. Greeks and Romans traveled to Egypt specifically to hear the voice, which they believed was the hero Memnon...

Conímbriga

Condeixa-a-Nova, Coimbra, Portugal

Conímbriga preserves more of daily Roman provincial life than any other site in Portugal: a forum built for the imperial cult, mosaic-floored villas, and a defensive wall...

Corycian Cave

Delphi, Mount Parnassus, Phocis, Central Greece, Greece

Corycian Cave is a source-documented sacred cave in Mount Parnassus, Phocis, Central Greece, associated with Pan and the Corycian Nymphs....

Cremna

Burdur, Turkey

Cremna sits at the edge of a promontory above the Aksu Valley in Burdur Province, its name derived from the Greek word for cliff....

Cyaneae

Antalya, Turkey

Cyaneae stands on a hill above the village of Yavu in western Lycia, its streets lined with more sarcophagi than any other known Lycian city....

Cyme

İzmir, Turkey

Cyme was the largest and most influential of the twelve Aeolian cities of Asia Minor — a harbor metropolis whose Apollo oracle was consulted in moments of civic crisis,...

Cyzicus

Balıkesir, Turkey

Cyzicus was once one of the most powerful and sacred cities of the ancient world — hosting the Temple of Hadrian, the largest Roman sacred structure ever built....

Delos

Municipality of Mykonos, South Aegean, Greece

Delos stands where light entered the world. According to Greek myth, this tiny island was floating and rootless until Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis here, and the...

Delphi

Municipal Unit of Delphi, Central Greece, Greece

Delphi stands where the Greeks placed the center of the world. Zeus sent eagles from the ends of the earth; where they crossed, he set the omphalos, the navel stone....

Didyma

Didim, Aydın, Turkey

Didyma held one of the ancient Greek world's most consulted oracles of Apollo, second in prestige only to Delphi....

Diktaion Andron Cave

Part of Mt. Dicti

Psichro, Crete, Greece

High on the slopes of Mount Dicte, above the enclosed bowl of the Lassithi Plateau, the Diktaion Andron opens into the limestone of Crete like a wound in the surface of...