At a remote river confluence in Peru’s highlands, Chavin de Huantar spread its jaguar gods, hallucinogenic rituals, and sunken plazas across the Andes without ever raising an army.

Long before the Inca, a temple in the Peruvian Andes used darkness, roaring water, carved monsters, and visions to overwhelm pilgrims. Meet Chavin de Huantar and its fanged god, the Lanzon.

In the great city of Isfahan, once one of the largest and most magnificent cities in the world, stands a pavilion of extraordinary elegance reflected in a long, still pool.

Founded by Dorian settlers in Crimea, Chersonesus endured for over two millennia through Greek, Roman, and Byzantine eras, becoming a sacred and strategic Black Sea city.

On the flat limestone plain of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula rises the most famous of all Maya cities. At its centre stands a single perfect pyramid, El Castillo, a mountain of

Chichen Itza blended Maya tradition with outside influence to build a serpent shadow pyramid, a giant ballcourt, and an observatory tracking Venus.

Spread across the summit of a great hill above the plains of southern Rajasthan, covering an area so vast that a whole city once flourished within its walls, Chittorgarh is

Out on the plains of southwestern Iran, rising unexpectedly from the flat landscape, stands one of the most extraordinary monuments to survive from the ancient world: a vast stepped tower

Image: Leonid Plotkin The most spectacular Elikli rock from the rocky area of Cholpan Ata, where every stone is adorned with Scythian – Kun traces. There are many more rock

Deep in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada, the Tairona city called Teyuna, or Ciudad Perdida, still connects to living Kogi and Wiwa communities who consider it sacred ground today.