Medieval Era

500 CE – 1500 CE · 47 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

The twin Gothic spires and west façade of Cologne Cathedral, Germany

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Country Record

Known by the Most Names in Germany

Cologne Cathedral

1248 CE – 1880 CE

The masterpiece of German Gothic architecture and the most-visited landmark in Germany — a twin-spired cathedral begun in 1248 to enshrine the relics of the Three Kings. Left unfinished for centuries, it was completed in 1880 to its original medieval plans, and for four years stood as the tallest building in the world.

High MedievalMedieval

The Court of the Lions at the Alhambra, Granada

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Country Record

Oldest Complex in Spain

Alhambra

889 CE – 1492 CE

The crowning achievement of Nasrid Islamic architecture — a palace-city of stucco lacework, muqarnas vaulting, and garden courts built above Granada by the last Muslim dynasty in Iberia between 1238 and 1492.

MedievalHigh MedievalEarly Modern

The Kandariya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, India

Country Record

Oldest Temple in India

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.

MedievalHigh Medieval

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

Country Record

Oldest Complex in Türkiye

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.

Iron AgeClassicalByzantine

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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.

ByzantineMedieval

The stone chariot wheels and jagamohana of Konark Sun Temple, Odisha, India

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Country Record

Known by the Most Names in India

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

New

Longmen Grottoes

493 CE – 1127 CE

One of the greatest treasuries of Chinese Buddhist stone sculpture — more than 2,300 caves and niches cut into the limestone cliffs above the Yi River near Luoyang, holding over 100,000 carved images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas produced across four centuries. Begun by the Northern Wei dynasty around 493 CE and reaching its height under the Tang, its colossal Vairocana Buddha at the Fengxian Temple, some 17 metres tall, ranks among the supreme achievements of East Asian religious art.

Late AntiqueEarly MedievalMedieval

Giant carved stone faces on the towers of the Bayon Temple at the centre of Angkor Thom, Cambodia

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Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Cambodia

Angkor Thom

1181 CE – 1431 CE

The last great walled capital of the Khmer Empire, built by King Jayavarman VII at the end of the 12th century CE as the centrepiece of a massive Buddhist building programme following decades of warfare. At its heart stands the Bayon Temple, its 54 towers carved with 216 enormous, serenely smiling stone faces — among the most instantly recognisable images in world archaeology — surrounded by the Terrace of the Elephants, the Terrace of the Leper King, and the royal palace precinct of Phimeanakas.

MedievalHigh Medieval

Panoramic view of ancient Antakya from the hills

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Antioch (Antakya)

300 BCE – 1268 CE

One of the four great cities of the ancient world and a cradle of early Christianity. Antioch's extraordinary mosaics rival those of Pompeii, and its layered history spans Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic civilizations.

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

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

New

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