Medieval Era

500 CE – 1500 CE · 49 sites

All sites in this period

The fifteen moai of Ahu Tongariki at Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile

Continent Record

Most-Visited Ancient Site in Oceania

Easter Island

900 CE – 1722 CE

The most remote inhabited island on Earth and the home of the moai — over 900 monumental stone figures, some weighing 80 tonnes, carved and transported by the Rapa Nui people across a tiny Pacific island to stand on ceremonial platforms as the embodied presence of ancestral chiefs.

MedievalEarly Modern

Walled old town and harbour of Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Sea

Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Croatia

Dubrovnik Old Town

600 CE – 1808 CE

The walled marble city on the Adriatic — capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa for centuries — whose intact ramparts, Stradun, and Renaissance palaces make it one of Europe's most visited historic cities and a UNESCO masterpiece of late-medieval urban design.

MedievalEarly Modern

Kailasa Temple (Cave 16) at Ellora, carved from a single basalt outcrop, Maharashtra, India

Country Record

Longest Recorded History in India

Ellora Caves

100 BCE – 1100 CE

The world's largest rock-cut monastic and temple complex — 34 monasteries and shrines carved directly into a 2-kilometre basalt escarpment in Maharashtra, representing Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions side by side. The Hindu Kailasa Temple (Cave 16), hewn from a single enormous rock in the 8th century CE, is the largest monolithic structure ever carved from stone and one of humanity's most audacious feats of rock-cut architecture.

ClassicalLate AntiqueEarly Medieval

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

Meteora

1100 CE – 1900 CE

A forest of sandstone pinnacles in Thessaly, Greece — crowned by Byzantine and post-Byzantine monasteries reached by stairs and bridges — among the most dramatic religious landscapes in Europe and a UNESCO site drawing millions of visitors and pilgrims.

MedievalEarly Modern

Derinkuyu

800 BCE – 1923 CE

The deepest known underground city in the world, extending 85 meters below the surface with 18 levels. It could shelter approximately 20,000 people along with livestock and food stores.

312

Iron AgeClassicalByzantine

White plastered main keep and roofs of Himeji Castle, Japan

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Country Record

Longest Recorded History in Japan

Himeji Castle

1333 CE – 1868 CE

Japan's finest surviving feudal castle — a white-plastered maze of keeps, gates, and moats in Hyogo Prefecture — draws enormous Chinese and English search traffic as the country's most complete "original" fortress and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993.

Early ModernMedieval

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Konark Sun Temple

1244 CE – 1264 CE

A 13th-century masterpiece of Odishan temple architecture conceived as the cosmic chariot of the sun god Surya — its massive stone wheels, rearing horses, and intricate sculptural programme covering every surface make it one of the most extraordinary religious monuments ever built.

Medieval

Khajuraho

950 CE – 1050 CE

India's supreme expression of medieval temple architecture — 25 surviving sandstone temples built by the Chandela dynasty in central India between 950 and 1050 CE, celebrated for their exuberantly carved sculptural programs depicting gods, celestial beings, and erotic scenes, rising from a flat plain with no other settlement in sight.

311

MedievalHigh Medieval

The Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India

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Country Record

Oldest Temple in India

Bodh Gaya

500 BCE – 1900 CE

The place where Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree — marked by the soaring Mahabodhi Temple in Bihar, India — the holiest pilgrimage site in Buddhism and a UNESCO World Heritage monument drawing devotees from across Asia.

Iron AgeClassicalEarly Medieval

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Ani

500 CE – 1400 CE

A medieval Armenian capital on the Turkish-Armenian border, once home to over 100,000 people. Its ruins include magnificent churches, mosques, and fortifications spanning centuries of multicultural history.

312

ByzantineMedieval

Cliff face of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, honeycombed with Buddhist cave temples carved over a thousand years

Country Record

Oldest Complex in China

Mogao Caves

366 CE – 1368 CE

A honeycomb of 492 Buddhist cave temples cut into a cliff face at the western edge of the Gobi Desert, filled with murals and sculptures created continuously across a thousand years of Silk Road history. In 1900, a hidden chamber known as the Library Cave was discovered sealed behind a wall, containing roughly 50,000 manuscripts and paintings — including the Diamond Sutra of 868 CE, the world's oldest dated printed book — that transformed the study of medieval Asian religion, language, and trade.

Late AntiqueEarly MedievalMedieval