Terracotta Army
Xi'an, China
The Terracotta Army is a buried force of more than 8,000 life-size clay soldiers, with horses and chariots, made to…
187 tickets & tours
By type
Best other ancient monuments to visit worldwide
This page gathers what fits nowhere else: aqueducts, roads, geoglyphs, walls, gates and single monuments, where the structure itself is the sight. Roman aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia stack arches of dry-laid stone in two or three tiers; the Porta Nigra in Trier is a complete Roman city gate; the Nazca Lines are animals and straight lines scraped into the Peruvian desert; the Terracotta Army is a buried army of clay soldiers guarding a tomb; on Rapa Nui the moai stand on their platforms or lie half-carved in the quarry.
Nazca Lines
Nazca, Peru
The Nazca Lines are giant figures and straight lines scraped into the desert of southern Peru between about 500 BC and…
69 tickets & tours
Rapa Nui National Park
Hanga Roa, Chile
Rapa Nui National Park covers almost half of Easter Island, the remote Chilean island in the South Pacific, and…
55 tickets & tours
Pont du Gard
Vers-Pont-du-Gard, France
The Pont du Gard is the three-tiered Roman aqueduct bridge over the river Gardon near Remoulins in southern France,…
9 tickets & tours
Zaghouan Aqueduct
Mohamedia, Tunisia
The Zaghouan Aqueduct is the Roman water line that carried spring water from the mountains of Zaghouan to Carthage, 132…
9 tickets & tours
Timgad and the Arch of Trajan
Timgad, Algeria
The Arch of Trajan is the 12-metre triple gateway of Timgad, a Roman colony founded in AD 100 in the high plains of…
5 tickets & tours
Unfinished Obelisk
Aswan, Egypt
The Unfinished Obelisk lies in an ancient granite quarry in Aswan, where Egyptian stonemasons abandoned it after the…
4 tickets & tours
Aqueduct of Segovia
Segovia, Spain
The Aqueduct of Segovia is a Roman water bridge of 167 arches that strides across the lower town of Segovia, about 28…
2 tickets & tours
Hadrian’s Library
Athens, Greece
Hadrian's Library is the great colonnaded building the emperor Hadrian gave Athens in AD 132, on the north side of…
1 ticket or tour
Porta Nigra
Trier, Germany
The Porta Nigra in Trier is the best-preserved Roman city gate north of the Alps, a four-storey sandstone gateway built…
1 ticket or tour
Aqua Claudia (Claudian Aqueduct)
Rome, Italy
The Aqua Claudia is the Roman aqueduct whose long line of brick and stone arches still strides across the countryside…
No online ticket
Aqueduct of Valens
Istanbul, Turkey
The Aqueduct of Valens is the great two-tiered stone and brick bridge that strides across central Istanbul, completed…
No online ticket
Incekaya Aqueduct
Safranbolu, Turkey
The Incekaya Aqueduct is a stone bridge of six arches spanning the Tokatli Canyon about 7 km north of Safranbolu,…
No online ticket
Les Ferreres Aqueduct (Pont del Diable)
Tarragona, Spain
Les Ferreres Aqueduct, known locally as the Pont del Diable, is a two-tier Roman aqueduct bridge in pine woods 4 km…
No online ticket
Madara Rider
Madara, Bulgaria
The Madara Rider is an early medieval relief of a horseman spearing a lion, carved about 23 metres up a sheer cliff…
No online ticket
Pena Cortada Roman Aqueduct
Calles, Spain
The Pena Cortada aqueduct is a Roman water channel in the hills of Los Serranos, inland from Valencia, between Chelva,…
No online ticket
Tour Magne
Nîmes, France
The Tour Magne is a Roman tower on the hill of Mont Cavalier above the Jardins de la Fontaine in Nimes, the highest…
No online ticket
Visits are usually short, from half an hour at Segovia, which is free to see at any hour, to a morning for the Terracotta Army. The exceptions are Nazca, best seen on a small-plane flight early in the day, when the air is calmer, and Rapa Nui, which needs three or four days. Look for the museum or visitor centre that explains the engineering, and at the Pont du Gard book ahead in summer to walk the conduit with a guide.
The best examples in the catalogue are the Pont du Gard in France, the Aqueduct of Segovia in Spain, the Nazca Lines in Peru, the Terracotta Army near Xi’an in China, the moai of Rapa Nui in Chile and the Porta Nigra in Germany.