Appian Way
Rome, Italy
The Appian Way is the Roman road begun in 312 BC from Rome towards southern Italy, and its first 16 km out of the city…
36 tickets & tours
By type
Best tombs & necropolises to visit worldwide
Tombs range from a single carved facade to whole cities of the dead. In Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, corridors cut into the rock lead down to painted burial chambers; at Hegra the Nabataeans carved tomb fronts into sandstone outcrops; the Etruscans of Tarquinia painted banquets and dancers on the walls of underground chambers; Rome lined the Appian Way with mausoleums. Elsewhere there are burial towers, mounds and catacombs. Look for the paintings and reliefs, the sarcophagi and the grave goods, often now in a museum nearby.
Hegra (Mada’in Salih)
AlUla, Saudi Arabia
Hegra, 20 km north of AlUla, was the second city of the Nabataean kingdom after Petra and is now Saudi Arabia's…
21 tickets & tours
Sillustani
Puno, Peru
Sillustani is a pre-Inca cemetery on a peninsula above Lake Umayo, about 35 km from Puno, where the Qulla nobility were…
21 tickets & tours
Valley of the Kings
Luxor, Egypt
The Valley of the Kings is the desert gorge on the west bank at Luxor where the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried…
20 tickets & tours
Mount Nemrut
Kahta, Turkey
Mount Nemrut is a 2,150-metre summit in south-eastern Turkey crowned by the tomb sanctuary of King Antiochus I of…
15 tickets & tours
Aigai (Vergina) Royal Tombs
Vergina, Greece
Aigai, at the village of Vergina in northern Greece, was the first capital of the kings of Macedon and the place where…
10 tickets & tours
Chauchilla Cemetery
Nazca, Peru
Chauchilla Cemetery is a Nazca culture burial ground in the desert 30 km south of Nazca, Peru, used from about AD 200…
7 tickets & tours
Valley of the Queens
Luxor, Egypt
The Valley of the Queens is the desert wadi on the west bank of Luxor where queens, princes and princesses of the New…
3 tickets & tours
Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
Alexandria, Egypt
The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa are a Roman-period burial complex cut three levels deep into the rock of Alexandria in…
1 ticket or tour
Necropolis of Anghelu Ruju
Alghero, Italy
Anghelu Ruju, north of Alghero in Sardinia, is the largest prehistoric cemetery on the island: 38 rock-cut tombs dug…
1 ticket or tour
Necropolis of Pantalica
Ferla, Italy
Pantalica is a limestone promontory above the Anapo and Calcinara gorges in south-east Sicily, honeycombed with about…
1 ticket or tour
Tuvixeddu Necropolis
Cagliari, Italy
Tuvixeddu is a limestone hill inside Cagliari riddled with more than a thousand shaft tombs cut by the Carthaginians…
1 ticket or tour
Banditaccia Necropolis, Cerveteri
Cerveteri, Italy
The Banditaccia necropolis outside Cerveteri is a city of the dead built by the Etruscans of Caere from the 9th to the…
No online ticket
Cava d’Ispica
Modica, Italy
Cava d'Ispica is a limestone gorge about 13 km long between Modica and Ispica in south-eastern Sicily, lined with…
No online ticket
Daereungwon Tomb Complex
Gyeongju, South Korea
Daereungwon is a walled park in central Gyeongju containing 23 grassy burial mounds of Silla kings, queens and nobles,…
No online ticket
Dilmun Burial Mounds
A'ali, Bahrain
The Dilmun Burial Mounds are the remains of one of the largest ancient cemeteries in the world, spread across the north…
No online ticket
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Bodrum, Turkey
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in Bodrum was the tomb of the Carian ruler Mausolus, built around 353 to 351 BC and…
No online ticket
Mausoleum of Augustus
Rome, Italy
The Mausoleum of Augustus is the round tomb that Rome's first emperor began in 28 BC on the Campus Martius, by the…
No online ticket
Necropolis of Tarquinia (Monterozzi)
Tarquinia, Italy
The Monterozzi necropolis, on a ridge just outside Tarquinia north-west of Rome, holds about 6,000 Etruscan tombs,…
No online ticket
Roman Necropolis of Carmona
Carmona, Spain
The Roman Necropolis of Carmona is a burial ground of the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD on the edge of an…
No online ticket
Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania
Sidi Rached, Algeria
The Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania is a huge round stone tomb on a hilltop near Tipasa, west of Algiers, linked to King…
No online ticket
Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak
Kazanlak, Bulgaria
The Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak is a small domed burial chamber of the 4th century BC in central Bulgaria, painted with a…
No online ticket
Tombe dei Giganti di Madau
Fonni, Italy
The Tombe dei Giganti di Madau are a group of four Nuragic giants'
No online ticket
Tombs of the Kings, Paphos
Paphos, Cyprus
The Tombs of the Kings are a large Hellenistic and Roman necropolis cut into the coastal rock about 2 km north of…
No online ticket
Most tombs take one to three hours. Inside, passages are often low, steep and stuffy, and flash is banned almost everywhere because light damages paint; some sites charge for a photo ticket or forbid cameras, as in the tomb museum at Aigai. Go at opening, especially in Luxor, where the valley is a stone bowl with no shade by mid-morning. Many are seen only through glass or on a guided tour.
The catalogue’s best include the Valley of the Kings in Egypt; Hegra in Saudi Arabia, with the lone carved facade of Qasr al-Farid; Mount Nemrut in Turkey, where giant stone heads face sunrise and sunset; the royal tombs of Aigai at Vergina in Greece, with their gold shown where it was found; the painted Monterozzi necropolis at Tarquinia in Italy; and the burial towers of Sillustani in Peru.