Ancient

Dolni Glavanak Cromlech

Dolni Glavanak, Haskovo, Bulgaria

The Dolni Glavanak Cromlech is the best-preserved stone circle in Bulgaria, a ring of fifteen deliberately pyramid-shaped stones arranged by Thracian communities some...

Doric Temple of Segesta

Calatafimi Segesta, Trapani, Italy

In the hills of western Sicily, a Doric temple stands almost complete after 2,400 years, its thirty-six unfluted columns rising against wild mountains and distant sea....

Edfu

Idfu City, Aswan, Egypt

The Temple of Edfu survives as the best-preserved temple in ancient Egypt, a time capsule buried for centuries and now revealed in near-complete form....

Eflatunpınar

Konya, Turkey

Built by a Hittite Great King as a monument to divine water, Eflatunpınar has kept faith with its original purpose for thirty-two centuries: the spring still flows, the...

Elaiussa Sebaste

Mersin, Turkey

Elaiussa Sebaste began on a small island in the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean's Cilician coast and grew outward until it connected to the mainland by a built...

Empúries Archaeological Site

L'Escala, Girona, Spain

On Catalonia's Costa Brava, Empúries is the only place in Spain where a Greek polis and a Roman city stand side by side, still legible in the ground....

Ephesus

Selçuk, İzmir, Turkey

For three millennia, the hills above Ephesus have been sacred to feminine divinity—first Cybele, then Artemis whose temple was one of the Seven Wonders, and now Mary,...

Epidauros

Municipal Unit of Epidavros, Peloponnese, Greece

Epidauros was the most important healing sanctuary in the ancient Greek world. Here, in an intimate valley of the Peloponnese, patients came to sleep in the sacred...

Erythrai

İzmir, Turkey

Erythrai stood at the intersection of Ionian, Phoenician, and proto-Christian sacred traditions: home to the Erythraean Sibyl, one of antiquity's most celebrated oracular...

Euromos

Muğla, Turkey

Euromos preserves one of the most complete Corinthian temples in Asia Minor — sixteen columns of the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos still standing in an ancient olive grove....

Evora, Roman Temple

Évora, Évora, Portugal

Six Corinthian columns rise from a granite podium at the center of Évora's old town — one of the best-preserved Roman temples on the Iberian Peninsula, and one whose...

Fasıllar Monument

Konya, Turkey

On an open hillside near Beyşehir in Konya Province, an 8-meter basalt block carries the most ambitious Hittite religious sculpture ever attempted: the storm god...

Fıraktın Relief

Kayseri, Turkey

Carved into a riverside boulder in a Taurus mountain valley fifty kilometers south of Kayseri, the Fıraktın relief depicts Hittite Great King Hattusili III pouring water...

Gavurkale

Ankara, Turkey

Rising sixty meters above a stream valley sixty kilometers southwest of Ankara, Gavurkale carries the carved images of three deities — a seated goddess and two...

Giza Necropolis

Giza, Giza, Egypt

The Giza Necropolis is the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World. Three pyramids rise from the desert plateau—grandfather, father, grandson—each an attempt to defeat...

Gökbez Relief

Niğde, Turkey

In a courtyard in Gökbez village, Niğde Province, a massive stone block lies on its side against a house wall — a Neo-Hittite storm god who has been horizontal for...

Gordion

Eskişehir, Turkey

The Phrygian capital that gave the world its most enduring metaphor for intractable problems — and the young conqueror who resolved it with a sword blow....

Great Pyramid of Giza

Inside Giza Necropolis

Giza, Giza, Egypt

The Great Pyramid rises from the Giza Plateau like a geometric mountain, its proportions so precise that modern engineers struggle to explain how 4,500-year-old technology...

Hanyeri Relief

Adana, Turkey

Carved four meters above a mountain road at the Gezbeli Pass in the Taurus Mountains, the Hanyeri relief names the divine owner of the mountain it occupies: Sharruma,...

Hattusha

Çorum, Turkey

Hattusha was the capital of the Hittite Empire, a Bronze Age superpower that rivaled Egypt and Babylon and signed the world's oldest surviving peace treaty....

Hattusha Lion Gate

Part of Hattusha

Çorum, Turkey

The Lion Gate of Hattusa stands at the high southwestern point of a six-kilometre fortification wall surrounding what was once the Bronze Age world's largest capital — the...

Heliopolis

Qalyubia, Egypt

At ancient Heliopolis, Egyptian priests held that the first land — the Benben mound — rose from the dark primordial waters of Nun, and on it the self-created god Atum...

Hemite Relief

Osmaniye, Turkey

On the north bank of the Ceyhan River in Osmaniye Province, a 13th-century BC Hittite warrior-prince gazes outward from the cliff face above the water....

Hierapolis Plutonion and the Cleopatra Pool

Pamukkale, Denizli, Turkey

Hierapolis was built on a karstic fault that exhales both deadly carbon-dioxide and warm mineral water....

Iasos

Muğla, Turkey

Iasos occupies a rocky promontory in the Gulf of Güllük that was once a true island, connected to the mainland only by a narrow causeway....

Idomenae (Isar, Marvinci)

Valandovo, North Macedonia

Idomenae — identified with the hilltop site of Isar above Marvinci village — was a fortified Macedonian city and later Roman settlement that commanded the Vardar valley...

İmamkullu Relief

Kayseri, Turkey

On the flank of Bey Dağı in Kayseri's Tomarza district, a trachyte boulder carries the most dynamic image in Hittite rock art: the Thunder God Teshub riding his chariot...

İvriz Monuments

Konya, Turkey

At a cliff face above a perennial spring in the Konya foothills, the Neo-Hittite king Warpalawa had himself carved in an act of worship before Tarhunzas — the storm and...

Kaman-Kalehöyük

Kırşehir, Turkey

Kaman-Kalehöyük holds over 40 layers of human occupation spanning 9,000 years — from the Chalcolithic through the Ottoman period — in central Anatolia....

Kamares Cave

Tybakio Municipal Unit, Crete, Greece

High on the southern face of Mount Ida, the highest mountain in Crete, a vast arched entrance opens into the mountain at nearly 1,700 meters....

Karabel Relief

İzmir, Turkey

A rock relief carved three millennia ago by a Hittite vassal king watches over the Karabel Pass in the hills east of İzmir....

Karadjov kamak, Mostovo

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Karadjov Kamak rises to 1,448 meters in the Rhodope Mountains, a massive rock plateau where the Bessi tribe, the priestly caste of the Thracians, practiced their cult of...

Karakuş Tumulus

Adıyaman, Turkey

Karakuş Tumulus is an artificial mound 30 metres high and 150 metres across, built c....

Karasu Relief

Gaziantep, Turkey

On a cliff face two hundred meters above the Karasu River near its meeting with the Euphrates, the Karasu Relief shows a deity standing on a stag: Runtiya, the...

Karatepe-Aslantaş

Osmaniye, Turkey

Karatepe-Aslantaş is a late Iron Age fortress-city in the Taurus Mountains whose bilingual Phoenician-Luwian inscription unlocked the decipherment of Anatolian hieroglyphs...

Kaunos

Muğla, Turkey

Kaunos is an ancient Carian city whose most striking feature is a row of spectacular rock-cut tombs carved high into a vertical cliff face above the Dalyan River....

Kaunos Tomb of the Kings

Muğla, Turkey

Cut directly into the limestone face of Balıklar Mountain, the temple tombs of Kaunos have watched the Dalyan River delta for more than two millennia....

Kerkenes Dağ

Yozgat, Turkey

Kerkenes Dağ is an Iron Age city that lasted barely a century before Croesus burned it to the ground and left it sealed in fire....

Kibyra

Burdur, Turkey

At the junction of four ancient Anatolian worlds — Lycia, Caria, Pisidia, and Phrygia — Kibyra built one of the most complete stadiums in the ancient world, carved...

King's Chamber

Inside Great Pyramid of Giza

Giza, Giza, Egypt

The King's Chamber sits at the geometric center of the Great Pyramid, a granite room built 4,600 years ago to endure eternity....

Kızıldağ Monuments

Karaman, Turkey

Rising from the flat Konya plain as a volcanic cone of red rock, Kızıldağ was the royal mountain sanctuary of King Hartapu — an Iron Age Luwian ruler who carved his...

Klazomenai

İzmir, Turkey

Klazomenai was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League, established on the western Anatolian coast in the first millennium BCE....

Knidos

Muğla, Turkey

Knidos stands at the extreme western point of the Datça Peninsula, where the Aegean gives way to the Mediterranean....

Knossos

Heraklion Municipal Unit, Crete, Greece

Knossos rises from the hills south of Heraklion on Crete, the ceremonial and sacred heart of the Minoan civilization....

Kom Ombu

Koum Ombo City, Aswan, Egypt

The Temple of Kom Ombo stands alone in Egypt as a double temple, its perfect bilateral symmetry honoring two gods who embody opposing forces: Sobek the crocodile,...

Kültepe-Kanesh

Kayseri, Turkey

Kültepe-Kanesh is where writing came to Anatolia. Beneath an unassuming mound northeast of Kayseri lie 23,500 cuneiform tablets—the oldest written documents from this part...

Labraunda

Muğla, Turkey

Labraunda is a mountain sanctuary in ancient Caria dedicated to Zeus Labraundos — a uniquely Carian form of Zeus bearing the double-headed axe (labrys)....

Lato

Agios Nikolaos Municipal Unit, Crete, Greece

High on a mountain saddle in eastern Crete, the ruins of Lato spread across a ridge overlooking the Gulf of Mirabello....