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Discover stone circles, standing stones, dolmens, and other monuments whose scale reshaped both the landscape and the memory of the communities that built them.
001
Iberian peninsula's largest stone circle complex. Older than Stonehenge by three millennia, rediscovered only in 1966.
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002
Largest prehistoric stone circle in Europe, surrounding an entire village. Easier to overlook than Stonehenge, and bigger.
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003
Some of the largest cut stones ever moved. The Trilithon's three blocks weigh roughly 800 tonnes each, and one larger remains in the quarry.
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004
Cruciform arrangement of Lewisian gneiss on the Isle of Lewis. Aligned with a lunar standstill that occurs once every 18.6 years.
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005
Over 3,000 standing stones in long parallel rows. Local legend held them to be a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin.
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006
Prehistoric tomb topped by a 150-tonne capstone. Aligned to the only mountain visible from its entrance.
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007
Around 900 monolithic figures carved by the Rapa Nui. Many were toppled deliberately during a period of internal conflict.
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008
Sandstone pillars carved with medieval Christian reliefs but used much earlier. Co-opted by 20th-century mythology.
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009
Limestone monolith with the body of a lion and a human head, carved in situ from the Giza bedrock. The largest monolithic statue in the world.
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010
Seat of the High Kings of Ireland. The Mound of the Hostages, a passage tomb, predates the kingship by two millennia.
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011
Megalithic walled compound on Kosrae, contemporary with Nan Madol. Many of the same prismatic basalt columns, now half-swallowed by mangroves.
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012
Includes the Grand Menhir Brisé, a single 20-metre stone broken into four pieces. The largest single block ever moved by Neolithic Europeans.
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013
Hierotheseion of King Antiochus I of Commagene. Toppled colossal heads of gods and ancestors line the summit.
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014
Stone circle in the Nubian Desert, predating Stonehenge. Possibly the world's oldest known astronomical alignment.
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015
99 artificial basalt islets off the coast of Pohnpei. Walls built from prismatic columns weighing up to 50 tonnes, hauled by means unknown.
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016
Achaemenid kings carved their tombs into a cliff face here. Sasanian rulers later added monumental rock reliefs of their victories.
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017
Sardinian Bronze Age tower complex. The largest of around 7,000 nuraghi scattered across the island.
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018
Rock shelter in northeast Brazil with charcoal layers dated to 48,000 years before present. If the dates hold, the oldest evidence of human presence in the Americas.
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019
Thousands of carved stone jars scattered across a high plateau. Heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam-era bombing.
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020
Tiwanaku-era temple complex, scattered with massive andesite blocks cut to interlocking H-profiles. How they were shaped is still debated.
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021
Concentric stone circles in the Golan Heights, with a central tumulus added later. Sometimes called the Stonehenge of the Levant.
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022
Cyclopean Inca walls above Cusco. Stones are fitted so tightly that a knife blade cannot be inserted between them.
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023
Largest cluster of pre-Columbian megalithic statuary in South America. Hundreds of stone figures guarding burial mounds in the upper Magdalena valley.
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024
Over a thousand stone circles spread across the Senegal-Gambia border. The largest concentration of megaliths in the world.
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025
National park in Piauí with over 1,300 sites and 30,000 painted figures. The largest concentration of prehistoric art in the Americas.
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026
Massive limestone discs (rai), some up to 3.6 metres across, quarried in Palau and brought across the open ocean by canoe.
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027
Sarsen circle and bluestone arrangement on Salisbury Plain. The bluestones travelled 240 kilometres from the Preseli Hills.
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028
Submerged sandstone formation off Ryukyu's southwesternmost island. Geologists call it natural; some divers call it a sunken city.
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