Prehistory
Stonehenge: The Prehistoric Stone Circle on Salisbury Plain
A monumental stone circle aligned on the solstices, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world's best-known prehistoric monuments.
Region
Europe
Ancient World
Palace of Knossos (c. 1900 BC): The Minoan Labyrinth of Crete
The largest Minoan palace, centre of Bronze Age Crete for some five centuries, later an administrative seat of Mycenaean Greeks and the source of the Labyrinth legend.
Ancient World
Linear A: The Undeciphered Script of Minoan Crete
The Minoan language written in Linear A remains unknown; only numbers, some sign values and a few words such as 'total' can be read with confidence.
Ancient World
Phaistos Disc (c. 1700 BC): The Mysterious Stamped Disc of Crete
An undeciphered text stamped with movable signs, unique in the Bronze Age world and now kept in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
Ancient World
Grave Circle A and the Mask of Agamemnon (c. 1600 BC) at Mycenae
Six shaft graves of an early Mycenaean elite were found packed with gold, revealing the wealth of Greece's first Bronze Age rulers centuries before the age of Agamemnon.
Ancient World
Nebra Sky Disc: Bronze Age Europe's Map of the Heavens
Recovered in a police sting in 2002, the disc is now in the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle and on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
Ancient World
Akrotiri (c. 1600 BC): The Bronze Age Town Buried by Thera
A prosperous Cycladic town preserved under volcanic ash, revealing multi-storey houses and some of the finest wall paintings of the Aegean Bronze Age.
Ancient World
Minoan Eruption of Thera (c. 1600 BC): Santorini's Great Blast
The island of Thera was buried in pumice and ash, its caldera enlarged and the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri entombed; Minoan Crete was affected but survived.
Ancient World
Cleopatra's Needles: Egyptian Obelisks in London and New York
Two ancient Egyptian obelisks, unrelated to Cleopatra, were re-erected in London in 1878 and New York in 1881, where they still stand.
Ancient World
Griffin Warrior Tomb (c. 1450 BC): Bronze Age Riches at Pylos
One of the richest intact Bronze Age graves found in Greece in decades, showing how early Mycenaean elites adopted Minoan art and ideas.
Ancient World
Linear B (c. 1450 BC): The Script That Revealed Mycenaean Greek
The decipherment showed that Linear B records the oldest known form of Greek, pushing written Greek back some five centuries before Homer.
Ancient World
Trundholm Sun Chariot: Bronze Age Sun Worship in Scandinavia
The chariot became the best-known object of the Nordic Bronze Age and the key evidence for a cult of the sun in prehistoric Scandinavia.