Islamic / Medieval Timeline

1000 BCE – 1950 CE · 6 sites

All sites in this period

Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Mali

Timbuktu

1100 CE – 1591 CE

Legendary 'City of 333 Saints' and major trans-Saharan trade hub; reached its intellectual zenith under Songhai (1464–1591), leaving earthen mosques and vast manuscript libraries.

323

High MedievalEarly Modern

The Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem

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Country Record

Known by the Most Names in Israel

Old City of Jerusalem

1000 BCE – 1900 CE

The walled heart of Jerusalem — roughly one square kilometre sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — where the Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Dome of the Rock stand within Ottoman-era ramparts and layers of Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine, and medieval archaeology.

211

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

Dense mud-brick tower houses of the walled city of Shibam in Wadi Hadramawt

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Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Yemen

Shibam

500 CE – 1800 CE

A walled city of towering mud-brick tower houses in Yemen’s Wadi Hadramawt — often called the "Manhattan of the Desert" — where medieval Hadrami urbanism perfected vertical densification as a response to floodplain limits and defensive needs.

MedievalEarly Modern

Earthen walls and ruins of the ancient city complex of Merv, Turkmenistan

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Ancient Merv

500 BCE – 1221 CE

One of the greatest oasis cities of Central Asia — successive walled cities of Margiana on the Murghab delta in present-day Turkmenistan, bridging Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sasanian, and Islamic Silk Road empires until Mongol destruction in 1221.

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

The vaulted coral-stone nave of the Great Mosque of Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania

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Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Tanzania

Kilwa Kisiwani

800 CE – 1520 CE

The greatest medieval trading city on the East African coast — an island sultanate whose coral-stone mosques and palaces dominated the Indian Ocean gold trade from the 9th to the 16th century. Ibn Battuta visited in 1331 and called it one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Early MedievalMedieval

Mud-brick ksar of Aït Ben Haddou climbing a hillside in Morocco

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Continent Record

Oldest Settlement in Africa

Aït Ben Haddou

1600 CE – 1950 CE

A fortified earthen ksar on the old caravan route between the Sahara and Marrakesh, its stacked pisé towers climbing a hillside above the Ounila River. UNESCO listed the ensemble in 1987; filmmakers from Gladiator to recent Trojan epics have used its ridge as a stand-in for ancient walled cities when cameras need sun, dust, and mud-brick authenticity.

211

Early ModernOttoman