Record · Classical world · South Asia
Sihagiri in the Culavamsa: Kassapa I's rock palace at Sigiriya
The Culavamsa says Kassapa fled to Sihagiri, walled it and built a lion staircase. The Central Cultural Fund dates his reign 477 to 495.
· AD 477Places & monuments
Articles about places & monuments across every continent and era, oldest first.
Record · Medieval world · Europe
Procopius's Buildings, Hagia Sophia and the dome that fell in 558
The Nika riot of 532 burned Constantinople's Great Church. Justinian's Hagia Sophia rose by 537, Procopius described it, and its dome fell in 558.
· AD 537
Record · Medieval world · Europe
A ship in a mound, 1939: Basil Brown at Sutton Hoo
In 1939 Basil Brown excavated a 27-meter ship burial at Sutton Hoo for Edith Pretty; an inquest gave the find to her, who gave it to the British Museum.
· AD 625
Record · Medieval world · South Asia
Act No. 39 of 2010 and the Nalanda that Xuanzang described
Xuanzang recorded Nalanda's gatekeeper and debates; the ASI dug the site in 1915–37 and 1974–82; an Act of September 21, 2010 revived the name.
· AD 629
Record · Medieval world · Europe
The Oseberg ship: buried in 834, dug out in 1904
Tree-ring dating puts the Oseberg ship's timber at about 820 and its burial at 834; Gabriel Gustafson excavated it in 1904 after a farmer's report in 1903.
· AD 834
Record · Medieval world · The Americas
PLOS ONE's 102 dates put Tiwanaku's collapse at AD 1010 to 1050
A 2023 PLOS ONE model of 102 radiocarbon dates puts Tiwanaku's monument building at AD 590 to 720 and its collapse at 1010 to 1050, before a drought.
· 1010
Record · Medieval world · Europe
When were Vikings in North America? A solar storm says AD 1021
Wood cut at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, dates to AD 1021 by a radiocarbon spike from a 993 solar storm. It is the cutting year, not the arrival year.
· 1021
Record · Medieval world · The Americas
Who carried 200,000 trees into Chaco Canyon, and why did they leave?
Ancestral Pueblo people carried about 240,000 beams 75 km into Chaco Canyon from 850 to 1130, then moved on in a drought; 19 Pueblos and the Hopi claim it.
· 1050
Record · Medieval world · The Americas
Monks Mound and 120 others: Cahokia on the Mississippi, 1050 to 1350
Monks Mound, 291 by 236 meters at one contour, anchored Cahokia in Illinois, a city of about 120 mounds and nearly 20,000 people about 1100, empty by 1350.
· 1100
Record · Medieval world · South Asia
Who built Angkor Wat? Suryavarman II, and the tomb of Lu Ban
Angkor Wat was built in the reign of Suryavarman II (anointed 1113). A Chinese envoy of 1296 called it only the tomb of Lu Ban; later books credited Rome.
· 1113
Record · Medieval world · Central Asia
A minaret rebuilt in 1127: the Kalyan tower of Bukhara
A minaret collapsed at Bukhara around 1121-22 and destroyed two-thirds of a new mosque. Arslan Khan Mohammad's replacement, 48 meters high, rose in 1127.
· 1127
Record · Medieval world · South Asia
An iron pillar older than its mosque: the Qutb Minar complex, Delhi
The Archaeological Survey of India dates the Qutb Minar to 1199; a metallurgist traces its courtyard iron pillar to Udayagiri, centuries earlier.
· 1199
Record · Medieval world · Oceania
Basalt logs on a reef: Nan Madol, Pohnpei, built from about AD 1180
Nan Madol is 92 to 100 islets of stacked basalt columns on a reef off Pohnpei. Coral from its first chief's tomb dates the monuments to AD 1180 to 1200.
· 1200
Record · Medieval world · Africa
Churches cut from rock: Francisco Álvares at Lalibela in the 1520s
Francisco Álvares measured Lalibela's rock-hewn churches twice in the 1520s, giving names, spans and a tradition of who built them.
· 1200
Record · Medieval world · Oceania
Three stones at Heketa, the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui trilithon of Tongatapu
David Burley calls the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui trilithon at Heketa the most impressive commemorative site on Tongatapu, its uprights tied to the 11th Tuʻi Tonga's two sons.
· 1200
Record · Medieval world · Africa
A gold rhinoceros from Mapungubwe Hill, found in the 1930s
The University of Pretoria Museums calls its gold rhinoceros the only artwork of its kind, found in a royal grave on Mapungubwe Hill in the 1930s.
· 1250
Record · Medieval world · The Americas
Cliff Palace, 150 rooms and 23 kivas: Mesa Verde, 1888 to 1906
On December 18, 1888, two ranchers looking for cattle saw Cliff Palace. Eight collections, a Swedish dig and the Antiquities Act of June 8, 1906 followed.
· 1250
Record · Medieval world · South Asia
Konark's Sun Temple: a stone chariot, and a hall filled with sand
The Archaeological Survey of India calls Konark's Sun Temple a stone chariot with twelve pairs of wheels and seven horses; its hall held sand until 2022.
· 1250
Record · Medieval world · The Americas
Mound B and the plaza at Moundville: a town that became a necropolis
About AD 1200 Moundville, Alabama, was a palisaded town around a mound-lined plaza. After 1300 most residents left and it became a burial center.
· 1250
Record · Medieval world · Central Asia
Not as big as Saint Denis: William of Rubruck measures Karakorum, 1254
A Franciscan friar entered the Mongol capital on May 7, 1254, sized it against a village near Paris, and described a silver fountain and Mongke's creed.
· 1254
Record · Medieval world · West Asia
A letter that ended a siege: Baybars at Krak des Chevaliers, 1271
In 1142 the Count of Tripoli gave Hisn al-Akrad to the Hospitallers. In 1271 Sultan Baybars took its keep with a forged surrender letter, Ibn al-Furat records.
· 1271
Record · Medieval world · Oceania
A 13-year-old's find at Wairau Bar in 1939, and a return in 2009
In 1939 Jim Eyles, 13, found a burial site at Wairau Bar with moa eggs and tools. Radiocarbon dates the graves to the 1200s-1300s; 42 koiwi came home in 2009.
· 1300
Record · Medieval world · The Americas
Chan Chan's adobe walls and the rains of 2016 and 2017
Peru's Ministry of Culture called Chan Chan a masterpiece of pre-Columbian design in 2016, the year Huaca Toledo was excavated and rain closed the site.
· 1300
Record · Medieval world · Africa
Who built Great Zimbabwe, and why was the answer buried?
Ancestors of the Shona built Great Zimbabwe between about 1100 and 1450, a city that lived on cattle, grain and gold. Rhodesia censored the finding until 1980.
· 1300