The biggest factor causing human loss in history was the incessant wars. However, infectious diseases for which no cure has been found, natural disasters such as fire, flood and earthquake

In the vast emptiness of the South Pacific, thousands of kilometres from any other inhabited land, lies one of the most extraordinary places on earth. Easter Island, known to its

Beneath the busy streets of Hamadan, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Iran, lies the buried capital of a vanished empire. This is Ecbatana, known in ancient times

High in the Andes, at an altitude of some two thousand eight hundred meters, the old city of Quito spreads across a mountain valley beneath the volcanoes of Ecuador. At

Halfway between Luxor and Aswan, in the town of Edfu, stands the most complete and best-preserved temple in all of Egypt. Dedicated to the falcon god Horus, the Temple of

There are castles that dominate a town, and then there is Edinburgh Castle, which dominates a whole nation’s imagination. Rising on a sheer black crag in the very centre of

On the Danish island of Funen there stands a castle so perfect that it seems almost unreal, a Renaissance stronghold of red brick rising sheer from the waters of its

On a narrow strip of land between two lochs in Orkney, ringed by hills that seem placed on purpose to frame it, stands the Ring of Brodgar, a stone circle

There is a fair chance that when you picture a Scottish castle, the image in your head is Eilean Donan, even if you have never heard the name. A small,

El Tajín rose on Mexico’s Gulf Coast as a ceremonial center famed for its niche-covered pyramid, seventeen ballcourts, and flying dancers.