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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
Large Neolithic and Chalcolithic arrangement of standing stones near Évora, built and altered over a long sequence rather than in a single construction phase.
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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
Cross-shaped Neolithic setting of Lewisian gneiss on the Isle of Lewis. Its purpose is unknown; a link to the Moon's 18.6-year cycle is an influential interpretation, not a certainty.
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004
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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005
Monumental gallery tomb roofed with enormous stone slabs. Unlike many Iberian tombs, its entrance is oriented toward the striking profile of Peña de los Enamorados.
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006
Around 900 monumental figures carved by Rapa Nui communities, many representing ancestors. Numerous moai once stood on ceremonial ahu and were later toppled; several have since been re-erected.
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007
Sandstone pillars carved with medieval Christian reliefs but used much earlier. Co-opted by 20th-century mythology.
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008
Monumental limestone figure with a lion's body and human head, carved largely from the Giza bedrock. It is usually associated with Khafre, though details of its commission remain debated.
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009
Neolithic complex including the broken Grand Menhir, once about 20 metres tall, and passage tombs whose carved stones were sometimes reused from earlier monuments.
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010
Seasonally occupied basin in the Nubian Desert with cattle burials, stone settings, hearths, and wells. Proposed astronomical alignments remain debated.
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011
Bronze Age Nuragic stronghold centred on a stone tower and later surrounded by additional towers, walls, and a village of circular houses.
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012
Thousands of carved stone jars scattered across a high plateau. Heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam-era bombing.
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013
Monumental sector of Tiwanaku with precisely worked sandstone and andesite blocks, including repeated H-shaped forms that once fitted into a larger architectural system.
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014
Concentric stone circles in the Golan Heights, with a central tumulus added later. Sometimes called the Stonehenge of the Levant.
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015
Inca complex above Cusco with three monumental zigzag terraces of closely fitted polygonal masonry. It served ceremonial and political roles as well as providing a defensible position.
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016
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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017
Over a thousand stone circles spread across the Senegal-Gambia border. The largest concentration of megaliths in the world.
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018
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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019
Sarsen circle and bluestone arrangement on Salisbury Plain. The bluestones travelled 240 kilometres from the Preseli Hills.
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020
Submerged sandstone formation off Ryukyu's southwesternmost island. Geologists call it natural; some divers call it a sunken city.
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