Middle East Archives | World Heritage Sites

A misty and rocky mountaintop, with a pedestal with broken statues on it, their heads on the ground in front of them.

Nemrut Dağ

A mountain on whose peak stands the tomb of King Antiochus I, an imposing artistic achievement of the Hellenistic period.

A series of ruins along the top of a hill.

The extensive ruins – palaces, churches, mosques, fortifications, and homes – of an important trading city on the medieval Silk Road, where diverse cultures and architectural traditions met and blended.

A huge rock emerging from the desert floor, and one side of it is carved into a grand entranceway.

Hegra Archaeological Site (al-Hijr / Madā ͐ in Ṣāliḥ)

An ancient Nabatean town with a number of massive rock-cut tombs from the 1st century AD.

A painted arch divided into squares by decorative lines, and with pictures of people or animals within each square.

Quseir Amra

An 8th-century desert castle with unusual Umayyad-period frescoes.

A closer view of the white terraces shows several small pools of blue water.

Hierapolis-Pamukkale

A Greco-Roman spa town and the enormous calcium terraces, waterfalls, basins and pools where it is located.

View over a neighborhood with lots of traditional mansions.

City of Safranbolu

A medieval caravan stop on the Silk Road that contains many examples of traditional Ottoman architecture.

High stone walls on two sides, with huge rectangular blocks. People standing at the base of the wall, quite nearby it.

Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls

An ancient and disputed city, holy to three major religions.

The exterior of Selimiye Mosque with two very tall minarets.

Selimiye Mosque and its Social Complex

A mosque complex representing the height of Ottoman architectural achievement.

A Romanesque church, round arched entryway open on three sides, a small tower.

Byblos

Ruins of many layers of civilizations and the birthplace of the Phoenician alphabet.

An entire temple, on a high base, surrounded by Corinthian columns.

Baalbek

An astoundingly large and well-preserved Roman temple complex.

Two camels lying down in the foreground, desert floor beyond them and huge rocky mountains behind that.

Wadi Rum Protected Area

A desert landscape known for its beauty as well as its archeological importance.

The mausoleum is a small square building with an arched entrance with one window above it. The base of what used to be a dome still stands on top.

Ancient City of Qalhat

The ruins of a major trade-route city of the Kingdom of Hormuz.

The imposing fortress on a small hill: mud walls and a tall round tower at its corner.

Bahla Fort

A massive mud-brick fortress, the capital of the Banu Nebhan and the centre of Ibadism in the Middle Ages.

Looking through a thick stone doorway to a row of arches and through them to the palace in the distance.

Anjar

Remains of an 8th-century Umayyad town that offers insight into Umayyad town planning and architecture.

The Library of Celsus seen from close by: columns frame 4 doorways on the ground floor and 3 on the upper floor. Each set of pillars holds a square pediment over the door.

Ephesus

An ancient port city with ruins from the Greek, Roman and early Christian periods.

Tombs cut into a cliff: several stories tall, with just a doorway in each, and decorative carving around doors and top of each.

Petra

A 2000-year-old Nabatean archeological site with hundreds of tombs and temples carved from sandstone cliffs.

Four huge sitting statues, with a doorway - about 3x higher than a person and reaching to knee height on the statues - in the center. At Ramses Temple, Nubian Monuments

Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae

Magnificent temples demonstrating the power of Ancient Egyptian civilization.

Old City of Acre

An ancient walled city where Ottoman structures were built on top of a Crusader-era fortress.

Socotra Archipelago

Four Indian Ocean islands with extraordinary biodiversity and distinct endemic species.

View of a room without a roof, walls of large stone blocks.

Masada

A 2000-year-old desert palace complex with a dramatic story of Jewish resistance against Roman rule.

Persepolis

Ruins of what was a magnificent palace complex over 2000 years ago, capital of the Achaemenid Empire.

Ruins of a temple, with tall columns supporting ornate pediments.

Pergamon and its Multi-Layered Cultural Landscape

A collection of 9 archeological sites covering several historical periods of an important city’s grand monuments.

A sloped landscape with a scattering of ruins: a well is visible, and a small building, as well as foundations of more buildings and some retaining walls at Troy Archaeological Site.

Archaeological Site of Troy

Excavation of the ancient Greek city of Troy, site of the Trojan War.

A white mosque with gray domes and very tall slender minarets. Beside it is a structure that looks like a castle's keep, round with crenellations around the top.

Historic Cairo

A collection of more than 800(!) structures – a fortress, religious sites, houses, cemeteries and many more – dating from about 100 AD until the 18th century.

A row of four enormous statues, seen from the side, guard the entranceways to the temple. Each has its arms crossed across its chest and each has a long straight beard.

Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis

Extensive temples and tombs that illuminate the history of ancient Egyptian civilization in architecture, art and text.

Palm trees on grassy ground. Narrow channels cut between the trees carrying water.

Cultural Sites of Al Ain

Evidence of a prehistoric transition from nomadic to sedentary societies around oases.