Sunday, July 05, 2026

History Highlights

The columned Greco-Roman temple of Garni

Garni: Armenia’s Sun-God Temple on a Cliff of Basalt Pillars

Set on a dramatic promontory high in the Armenian highlands, above a deep gorge whose walls are lined with strange columns of natural stone, stands a building that seems at

Erebuni fortress with Mount Ararat in the distance

Erebuni: The Urartian Fortress Whose Founding Stone Dated a City

Most cities cannot tell you the year they were born. Yerevan can. High on a hill overlooking the modern Armenian capital stand the remains of an ancient fortress whose founding

Ancient petroglyphs carved into rock at Gobustan

Gobustan: Forty Thousand Ancient Carvings Above the Caspian

On a stretch of rugged, semi-arid land not far from the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan lies one of the most extraordinary open-air galleries in the world. Here, among a chaos

The great ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil rising in tiers

Chogha Zanbil: The Elamite Ziggurat That Was Never Finished

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

The Shush Castle rising above the ruins of ancient Susa

Susa: A City of Endless Layers Where Empires Rose and Fell

Some cities live for a few centuries and then fade. Susa lived for thousands of years, rising and falling and rising again through one of the longest continuous histories of