16 Underrated Historical Monuments That Should Be Wonders of the Ancient World

This is the city.This stunning city served as a crossroads for many trade routes in the late 1st century BCE. Its amazing architecture makes it unforgettable.Petra served as a crossroads for many trade routes in the late 1st century BCE. Its amazing architecture makes this city unforgettable.The city still has gorgeous temples.These temples include Al-Khazneh, or "the Treasury." Builders combined diverse cultural influences from travelers living there or passing through. Petra features buildings ranging from theaters to dining rooms, all cut from the living rock.

Modern times recognize the city mainly through the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.The city still has gorgeous temples.The complex still has gorgeous temples.These temples include Al-Khazneh.Builders combined diverse cultural influences from travelers living there or passing through.Al-Khazneh, or "the Treasury."Builders of this ancient city combined materials from the many travelers residing there or passing through, or "the Treasury."Petra features buildings ranging from theaters to dining rooms, all cut from the living rock.Petra features a diversity of buildings, from theaters to dining rooms, cut from the living rock. These structures came from the many travelers who lived there or passed through.

Machu Picchu boasted incredible masonry techniques. Its granite blocks fit together without mortar, and it even had a sacred sundial.Machu Picchu, a complex in the mountains of Peru, holds 200 religious and ceremonial structures. It was perhaps once a sacred site for Incan royals.Angkor Wat was the former center of the Khmer kingdom in modern Cambodia. This massive temple complex is the largest religious monument in the world.Machu Picchu was once a sacred site for Incan royals.Machu Picchu showed incredible masonry skills. Builders fitted granite blocks together without mortar. A sacred sundial also exists there.The complete complex is huge. It covers about 402 acres and has a 213-foot-tall tower surrounded by a giant moat. The nearby city held nearly a million people at its peak.Qin Shih Huang Di, the first emperor of unified China, was a brutal ruler. Born Ying Zheng, Emperor Qin took the throne at age 13 in 246 BCE. He favored military power, expanding China's borders by force. He built the first part of what is now the Great Wall of China.The Spanish brutally slaughtered the Inca after Machu Picchu, but American historian Hiram Bingham uncovered it in 1911. Peru declared the site a historical sanctuary in 1981. Two years later, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization named it a World Heritage Site.

Angkor Wat was the former center of the Khmer kingdom in modern-day Cambodia. This massive temple complex stands as the largest religious monument in the world.Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world.Construction began on the temple complex and surrounding city in the 9th century. The main temple was built in the 12th century.The main temple at Angkor Wat was erected in the 12th century.Khmer King Suryavarman II changed the temple from a monument to the Hindu god Vishnu into a Buddhist temple by the end of the 12th century.

The whole complex is huge, spanning about 402 acres. It includes a 213-foot-tall tower and a giant moat. The nearby city was also large at its peak; nearly a million people lived there.

Qin Shih Huang Di, the first emperor of united China, was a brutal ruler. Born Ying Zheng, Emperor Qin took the throne at age 13 in 246 BCE. He used military power and quickly expanded China's borders by force. He also built the first section of what is now the Great Wall of China.

Qin sought immortality and was obsessed with death during his life. Almost immediately after taking the throne, he ordered his tomb built in modern-day Xi'an.He employed700,000 workers built a personal army of 6,000 terracotta statues of soldiers and horses. Each statue shows unique features and rank insignia. Uncovered in the 1970s, this "terracotta army" would follow the king in life, just as it did.

Now known as theColosseumEmperor Vespasian started building this giant amphitheater in Rome in the 70s CE. His son Titus finished it later, celebrating with 100 days of games and fights. The huge arenaSand covered the inside, perhaps dyed red to hide blood. Gladiatorial fights, sea battles (they flooded the arena), and wild animal fights took place there. They also called it the Flavian Amphitheater - named for Vespasian and TitusThe amphitheater could hold between 50,000 and 80,000 spectators. Its family name was Flavius.

Emperor Qin Shih Huang Di built a terracotta army for eternity, becoming the first emperor of a united China. He also ordered the Great Wall of China. His vision was not the wall we see now; it formed the base for it. Later emperors built the other major parts.

Some original construction predates the Qin emperor, existing as regular military garrisons. Qin ordered all northern walls linked into one mega-wall to defend his empire against "barbarians" and feudal lords. The wall grew over time to be 12,500 miles long, much of which still stands today.

Ciudad Perdida -locatedin Colombia - literally means "the Lost City." People built it 300 years after Machu Picchu, another ancient Latin America site. It covers 75 acres and has 200 buildings accessible by a1,200 step staircase. This site was probably not a ceremonial center like Machu Picchu. It likely served as a residential city where only a few thousand people lived.few thousand people lived. The Spanish conquistadors invaded and killed the inhabitants about 400 years after construction. The city stayed occupied until then.

It wasrediscovered in 1972a group of treasure looters found the stone staircase. They found gold figurines and ceramic urns, selling them on the black market. An archaeologist found the artifacts and traveled to the lost city four years later. Local native tribes knew about the city but kept silent.

The Behistun Inscriptionis a writing on a 300-foot-tall rock in Iran. It sits on what was the Aryan Trade Roads, also called the Silk Roads. This rock relief served an important purpose in archaeology. The rock contains text in Old Persian, Akkadian, and Elamite, commissioned by Darius the Great. Darius used the text to describe his rise to power.

Like the Rosetta Stone, the tri-lingual Behistun Inscriptiongave archaeologist Henry Rawlinson a chance to decipherOld Persian and AkkadiancuneiformIn 1835, he copied the inscription for years and compared it to Persian. He worked with other scholars to translate passages from Elamite and Akkadian. This inscription let later scholars read thousands of important texts.

The Ziggurat is a stepped pyramid made of mud and brick platforms in ancient Mesopotamia. At the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, King Ur-Nammu of Ur, a Mesopotamian city-state, started building huge temple-towers shaped like ziggurats. A double wall surrounded it, holding a sacred space for the god.the god Nanna, the moon god on top; the whole complex once occupied 124 acres.124 acresBasically, going higher made the space more sacred and exclusive.

The Great Living Chola TemplesThese three southern Indian temples were built in the 11th and 12th centuries CE. People often dedicated these divine palaces to Shiva and the richest classes supported them, making them centers for religious and political unity across a large empire. Building the temples gave artisans tons of jobs and economic growth. The temples themselves featured ornate stonework and construction.

The Brihadisvara Temple, which stands 216 feet high.It draws many tourists.This temple is the largest of the three and the most popular.

These pyramids, located in modern Sudan, are relics of the Kushite civilization.relics of the Kushite civilizationof ancient Nubia. They differ from northern ones—they are steeper and a bit smaller—and about 200 exist together. While these pyramids differ from Egyptian ones, ancient Nubian residents interacted with the Egyptians to the north, creating a cultural and ideological exchange.differentThese temples are steeper and smaller than their northern counterparts. About 200 exist together. Nubian residents interacted with Egyptians to the north, swapping culture and ideas.

These were built between 2,300 and 2,700 years ago. Their design elements show cultural influences from Egypt, Greece, and Rome.Egypt, Greece, and RomeTourism used to boom in this area, but the last 30 years have slowed down a lot. Civil war in the country and conflict in Darfur partly caused this.

Persepolis was the capital of the great Achaemenid Empire. The ancient city, in modern-day Iran, was built around 500 BCE under King Darius I's orders.

the "Gate of All Nations," also called the "Xerxes Gate," was the ceremonial entrance to Persepolis.ceremonialentryway to the city of Persepolis, complete with giant winged creatures called lamassu.lamassu (bulls mixed with men and birds), the gate led to stairs showing subjects from the whole empire visiting the King. Visitors walked these stairs into the audience hall, the apadana.apadana.There, they saw 72 giant columns and the King, who gave nice gifts.

Named after the man who ordered its construction,Hadrian's WallThe wall marked the northwestern edge of the Roman Empire for a long time. It extended 73 miles and measured eight feet wide.the wallwallLittle forts peppered the wall housed soldiers. Its goal was separating the "barbarians" from the Romans.the Romans.

Emperor HadrianThe leader of the Holy Roman Empire commissioned the wall in 122 CE. It crossed Britain from Wallsend on the River Tyne to the North Sea at Solway Firth. Turrets and Roman forts line the wall's path, acting as patrol bases. Hadrian faced pushback from Brits in the north. Fearing rebellion, he built the wall to stop an uprising. Many think the wall separates England and Scotland. The Scottish border is actually less than a mile from the wall; they have no connection.

TheKoguryo dynastyThe Koguryo dynasty was an important kingdom in ancient Korea, spanning from the 1st century BCE to the 7th century CE. One lasting impact was their stunning tomb murals.stunning tomb muralsThese funerary monuments, located in stone tomb chambers, showed movement and a fierce warrior spirit. They also included constellation charts.constellation chartsThese charts showed the Koguryo kingdom's astronomy knowledge and daily royal life depictions. You can see an example of a sword dance on these tomb murals.depictionsThese murals survive in Korea from that time. Archaeologists have found 70 murals so far; they keep digging for more.a sword danceon these tomb murals.

These murals survive from this time period in Korea. Archeologists find seventy murals so far; they keep digging for more.

When the ancient Romans conquered Judea, they found a tough population. In the 1st century CE, they took parts of what is now Israel, pushing the remaining resistors to a defensibledesert mountaintop called Masada. Masada, once a Herodian fortress, became a rebel garrison. It was Judean hope's last stand against the Romans, who finally took Masada.

However, before the Romans captured the rebels, the remaining Judean forces killed themselves instead of being enslaved by their enemies. Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus claims this. But modern scholarsdoubton the patriotic intent of the near-thousand who killed themselves; some suggest the heroic mass suicide at Masada was a myth.question the patriotic motives of the nearly thousand who killed themselves; some think the heroic mass suicide at Masada is a myth.

This Syrian town - controlled by Macedonians, Parthians, and Romans - became a cultural mix between the West and the East. People there mixed Greeks, Palymreneans, and Arameans, all with strong cultural feelings. These groups made a society with unique mixing. Dura-Europos held temples, one of the world's first synagogues, a Mithraeum (an underground temple to the soldier/bull godMithras,) and a church, all built under Roman rule.

It earns the name "Pompeii of the desert" because its exquisite ruins hide underground. The ruins of Dura Europos contain paintings and bas-reliefs.contain paintings and bas-reliefsThe synagogue and the Mithraeum are true works of art. ISIS damaged it, like many other Syrian sites.ISIS damaged it.Dura-Europos appears on the list '16 Underrated Historical Monuments That Should Be Wonders of the Ancient World'.