This is a list of sites where claims for the use of

archaeoastronomy Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cul ...

have been made, sorted by country. The

International Council on Monuments and Sites The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS; french: links=no, Conseil international des monuments et des sites) is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the worl ...

(ICOMOS) and the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

(IAU) jointly published a thematic study on heritage sites of astronomy and archaeoastronomy to be used as a guide to

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

in its evaluation of the cultural importance of archaeoastronomical sites around the world, which discussed sample sites and provided categories for the classification of archaeoastronomical sites. The editors, Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte, proposed that archaeoastronomical sites be considered in four categories: 1) Generally accepted; 2) Debated among specialists; 3) Unproven; and 4) Completely refuted.

Armenia

* Zorats Karer (aka Carahunge), archeological site claimed to have astronomical significance although this is disputed. it is often referred to in international tourist lore as the "Armenian Stonehenge".

Australia

* Ngaut Ngaut oral tradition says these engravings represent

lunar cycles Concerning the lunar month of ~29.53 days as viewed from Earth, the lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion, which can be expressed quantitatively using areas or angles, or described qualitatively using the t ...

.Australian Aboriginal Astronomy
at the CSIRO site. Accessed on 2009-08-02. *

Wurdi Youang Wurdi Youang is the name attributed to an Aboriginal stone arrangement located off the Little River – Ripley Road at Mount Rothwell, near Little River, Victoria in Australia. The site was acquired by the Indigenous Land Corporation on 14 Janua ...

, a stone arrangement with possible solar alignments * Stone structures at Lake Tyers traditionally used as an observatory

Brazil

* Parque Arqueológico do Solstício (called "Amazon Stonehenge"): An archaeological park located in Amapá state,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, near the city of

Calçoene Calçoene () is a municipality located in the east of the state of Amapá in Brazil. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean in the Amazon jungle basin near French Guiana. Calçoene covers and has a population is 11,306. The name Calçoene is a corru ...

. Archaeologists believe that this site was built by indigenous peoples for astronomical, ceremonial, or burial purposes, and likely a combination.

Bulgaria

Magura Cave The Magura Cave (Bulgarian "пещера Магура") is located in north-western Bulgaria close to the village of Rabisha, from the town of Belogradchik in Vidin Province. The prehistoric wall paintings of Magura have great resemblance with t ...

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

"paintings of staggered black and white squares could have been used to count the days in a calendar month", possibly indicating the number of days in the solar tropical year.

Cambodia

* Angkor Wat *

Phnom Bakheng Phnom Bakheng ( km, ភ្នំបាខែង ) is a Hindu and Buddhist temple in the form of a temple mountain in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia. Dedicated to Shiva, it was built at the end of the 9th century, during the reign of King Yasova ...

, According to

Jean Filliozat Jean Filliozat (4 November 1906 in Paris – 27 October 1982 in Paris) was a French writer. He studied medicine and was a physician between 1930 and 1947. He learned Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan and Tamil. He wrote some important works on the history ...

of the École Française, the center tower represents the axis of the world and the 108 smaller ones represent the 4 lunar phases each with 27 days.

Canada

* Petroforms of North America are shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground made by various Native American and

First Nation Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

tribes in North America. They are believed to have been made as astronomical calendars. *

Medicine Wheel To some indigenous peoples of North America, the medicine wheel is a metaphor for a variety of spiritual concepts. A medicine wheel may also be a stone monument that illustrates this metaphor. Historically, most medicine wheels follow the basic ...

Colombia

*''

El Infiernito ''El Infiernito'' (Spanish for "The Little Hell"), is a pre-Columbian archaeoastronomical site located on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes ...

'', (Spanish for "Little hell"), is a pre-Columbian

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

site located in the outskirts of

Villa de Leyva Villa de Leyva, also called Villa de Leiva, is a touristic colonial town and municipality, in the Ricaurte Province, part of the Boyacá Department of Colombia. The town is a Colombian National Heritage Town and is on the tentative list for UNES ...

, Boyacá Department, Colombia. It is composed of several earthworks surrounding a setting of

menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be found ...

s (upright standing stones); several burial mounds are also present. The site was a center of religious ceremonies and spiritual purification rites, and also served as a rudimentary astronomical observatory.

China

* Puyang tomb, dated from 5000 BP, depicts a mosaic of constellations. * The Taosi Observatory: An astronomical observatory which is the oldest in East Asia, located in

Xiangfen County Xiangfen County () is a county in the southwest of Shanxi Province, China. It was established in February 1954 from the merger of the former Xiangling County () and Fencheng County (). The county falls under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level ...

, Shanxi, China.

Egypt

Abu Simbel Abu Simbel is a historic site comprising two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel ( ar, أبو سمبل), Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. It is situated on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about ...

, The axis of the temple was positioned by the

ancient Egyptian architects Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...

in such a way that twice a year, on October 20 and February 20, the rays of the sun would penetrate the sanctuary and illuminate the sculpture on the back wall, except for the statue of

Ptah Ptah ( egy, ptḥ, reconstructed ; grc, Φθά; cop, ⲡⲧⲁϩ; Phoenician: 𐤐𐤕𐤇, romanized: ptḥ) is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the hu ...

, the god connected with the

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...

, who always remained in the dark. *

Nabta Playa Nabta Playa was once a large Endorheic basin, internally drained basin in the Nubian Desert, located approximately 800 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo or about 100 kilometers west of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt, 22.51° north, 30.7 ...

is an archaeological site in southern

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, containing what may be among the world's earliest known archeoastronomical devices from the

5th millennium BC The 5th millennium BC spanned the years 5000 BC to 4001 BC (c. 7 ka to c. 6 ka). It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological an ...

. These include alignments of stones that may have indicated the rising of certain stars and a "calendar circle" that indicates the approximate direction of summer solstice sunrise. *

Precinct of Amun-Re The Precinct of Amun-Re, located near Luxor, Egypt, is one of the four main temple enclosures that make up the immense Karnak Temple Complex. The precinct is by far the largest of these and the only one that is open to the general public. The te ...

Finland

*The so-called Giants' Churches (Finn. ''jätinkirkko''), which are large, from c. to over long rectangular or oval stone enclosures built in the Neolithic (c. 3000–1800 BC), have axis and doorway orientations towards the sunrises and sunsets of the solstices and other calendrically significant days. For example, the Kastelli of Raahe, which is one of the largest Giants' Churches, had its five "gates", i.e. wall openings, oriented towards the midsummer sunset, the

winter solstice The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter ...

sunrise, winter solstice sunset, the sunrises of the mid-quarter days of early May (Walpurgis, Beltaine) and August (Lammas), as well as the sunrise 11 days before the vernal equinox in 2500 BC.

France

* Belchen System * Carnac stones

Germany

* Belchen System * Goseck circle *

Glauberg The Glauberg is a Celtic oppidum in Hesse, Germany consisting of a fortified settlement and several burial mounds, "a princely seat of the late Hallstatt and early La Tène periods." Archaeological discoveries in the 1990s place the site among ...

* Magdalenenberg (disputed) * The Pömmelte Circle Shrine

Guatemala

Tikal Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-C ...

Uaxactun Uaxactun (pronounced ) is an ancient sacred place of the Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some north of the major center of Tikal. T ...

Honduras

Copán Ruinas Copán Ruinas is a municipality in the Honduran department of Copán. The town, located close to the Guatemalan border, is a major gateway for tourists traveling to the Pre-Columbian ruins of Copán. The Copán ruins house a UN World Heritage si ...

br>
* El Puente (Maya site), El Puente

Indonesia

Borobudur Borobudur, also transcribed Barabudur ( id, Candi Borobudur, jv, ꦕꦤ꧀ꦝꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ, Candhi Barabudhur) is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, not far from the town of Muntilan, in Central Java, Indone ...

Prambanan Prambanan ( id, Candi Prambanan, jv, ꦫꦫꦗꦺꦴꦁꦒꦿꦁ, Rara Jonggrang) is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound in Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, dedicated to the Trimūrti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the P ...

India

For a full list see the chapter on

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in the

ICOMOS The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS; french: links=no, Conseil international des monuments et des sites) is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the worl ...

book edited by Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte. These sites include: * Brahmagiri * Hanamsagar * Udayagiri * Sun temples of

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

Vijayanagar The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana and Maharas ...

Jantar Mantar A Jantar Mantar ( Hindustani pronunciation: ͡ʒən̪t̪ər mən̪t̪ər is an assembly of stone-built astronomical instruments, designed to be used with the naked eye. There were five Jantar Mantars in India, all of them built at the com ...

Gyarah Sidi Gyarah Sidi (''Literally: Eleven steps'') are the remains of the astrological observatory of the Mughal Emperor Humayun. The ruins are situated at a stone's throw from Babur’s Mehtab Bagh, in a field on the banks of the Yamuna river in Agra. ...

Burzahom archaeological site The Burzahom archaeological site is located in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Archaeological excavations have revealed four phases of cultural significance between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE. Periods I and II represent the Neolithic ...

Lonar Lake Lonar Lake, also known as Lonar crater, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument,Stone circles of Junapani J.M. Malville and Rana P.B. Singh have done much work on the archaeoastronomy of sacred sites in India.

Iran

Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...

Naqsh-e Rustam Naqsh-e Rostam ( lit. mural of Rostam, fa, نقش رستم ) is an ancient archeological site and necropolis located about 12 km northwest of Persepolis, in Fars Province, Iran. A collection of ancient Iranian rock reliefs are cut into t ...

Ireland

Newgrange Newgrange ( ga, Sí an Bhrú) is a prehistoric monument in County Meath in Ireland, located on a rise overlooking the River Boyne, west of Drogheda. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic Period, around 3200 B ...

, once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage into the chamber for about 17 minutes and illuminates the chamber floor. (Generally accepted). It was built during the

Neolithic period The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. *

Knowth Knowth (; ga, Cnóbha) is a Neolithic passage grave and an ancient monument of the World Heritage Site of Brú na Bóinne located 8.4 km west of Drogheda in Ireland's valley of the River Boyne. It is the largest passage grave of the Brú ...

is a Neolithic passage grave and ancient monument estimated to date from c. 3200 BC. *

Dowth Dowth ( ga, Dubhadh) is a Neolithic passage tomb located in the Boyne Valley, County Meath, Ireland. It is one of the three principal tombs of the ''Brú na Bóinne'' World Heritage Sitea landscape of prehistoric monuments including the large ...

in Boyne Valley,

County Meath County Meath (; gle, Contae na Mí or simply ) is a county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. It is bordered by Dublin to the southeast, Louth to the northeast, Kildare to the south, Offaly to the ...

is a Neolithic passage tomb date with Astronomical alignments from between approximately 3200 and 2900 BC. *

Loughcrew Loughcrew or Lough Crew () is an area of historical importance near Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland. It is home to a group of ancient tombs from the 4th millennium BC, some decorated with rare megalithic art, which sit on top of a range of hil ...

near

Oldcastle, County Meath Oldcastle () is a town in County Meath, Ireland. It is located in the north-west of the county near the border with Cavan, approximately 13 miles (21 km) from Kells. The R154 and R195 regional roads cross in the town's market square. ...

is a group of

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

ic tombs dating back to the 4th millennium BC, designed to receive the beams of the rising sun on the spring and autumnal

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...

- the light shining down the passage and illuminating the art on the backstone. * Carrowkeel * Mound of the Hostages *

Drombeg stone circle Drombeg stone circle (also known as ''The Druid's Altar''), is a small axial stone circle located east of Glandore, County Cork, Ireland. Although not an especially significant example, Drombeg is one of the most visited megalithic sites in ...

, at the winter solstice, the sun sets into a v formed by two distant overlapping hills and makes an alignment with the altar stone and the two main uprights. Due to the nature of the site and the western hills, local sunset is c. 15:50. * Beltany stone circle * Beaghmore Stone Circles, a complex of early

megalithic features, stone circles and cairns. Some archaeologists believe that the circles have been constructed in relation to the rising of the sun at the solstice, or to record the movements of the sun and moon acting as observatories for particular lunar, solar or stellar events. Three of the stone rows point to the sunrise at the time of the solstice and another is aligned towards moonrise at the same period.

Italy

Alatri Alatri ( la, Aletrium) is an Italian town and ''comune'' of the province of Frosinone in the region of Lazio, with c. 30,000 inhabitants. An ancient city of the Hernici,Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hernici". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed. ...

Nuraghe The nuraghe (, ; plural: Logudorese Sardinian , Campidanese Sardinian , Italian ), or also nurhag in English, is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 B.C. ...

Kenya

* Namoratunga

Korea

* Cheomseongdae, ancient observatory in Gyeongju,

Republic of Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its ea ...

, from the 7th century.

Malta

Megalithic Temples of Malta The Megalithic Temples of Malta ( mt, It-Tempji Megalitiċi ta' Malta) are several prehistoric temples, some of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, built during three distinct periods approximately between 3600 BC and 2500 BC on the island coun ...

Mnajdra Mnajdra ( mt, L-Imnajdra) is a megalithic temple complex found on the southern coast of the Mediterranean island of Malta. Mnajdra is approximately from the Ħaġar Qim megalithic complex. Mnajdra was built around the fourth millennium BCE; th ...

Tal-Qadi Temple Tal-Qadi Temple is a megalithic temple in Salina, limits of Naxxar, Malta. It is in a very bad state of preservation, with only the temple's general outline still visible. Site The site of Tal-Qadi was possibly in use around 4000 BC, during the ...

Mexico

Calakmul Calakmul (; also Kalakmul and other less frequent variants) is a Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Campeche, deep in the jungles of the greater Petén Basin region. It is from the Guatemalan border. Calakmul was one of the l ...

* Cantona *

Cañada de la Virgen Cañada de la Virgen (Spanish for Virgin's Glen) is an Otomi archaeological site in Mexico. Located in the state of Guanajuato, the site was first excavated in 1995, while the official excavation began in 2002. Public access was first allowed in 2 ...

Casas Grandes Casas Grandes (Spanish for ''Great Houses''; also known as Paquimé) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. Construction of the site is attributed to the Mogollon culture. Casas Grandes has been designat ...

* Chichen Itza ** The Caracol is theorized to be a proto-observatory with doors and windows aligned to astronomical events, specifically around the path of Venus as it traverses the heavens. (Debated among specialists). ** The main pyramid El Castillo (the Temple of Kukulkan) displays the appearance of a snake "crawling" down the pyramid at the spring equinox (Unproven). *

Coba Coba ( es, Cobá) is an ancient Maya city on the Yucatán Peninsula, located in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The site is the nexus of the largest network of stone causeways of the ancient Maya world, and it contains many engraved and sculp ...

* Dzibilchaltun, Spring equinox, the sun rises so that it shines directly through one window of the temple and out the other. * Ikil, Hierophany where the sunrise on the day of the solar zenith transit aligns with the summit of Ikil Structure 1 as viewed from an observation point within Ikil Cave 1. *

Izamal Izamal () is a small city in the Mexican state of Yucatán, east of state capital Mérida, in southern Mexico. Izamal was continuously occupied throughout most of Mesoamerican chronology; in 2000, the city's estimated population was 15,000 peop ...

Mitla Mitla is the second-most important archeological site in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and the most important of the Zapotec culture. The site is located 44 km from the city of Oaxaca, in the upper end of the Tlacolula Valley, one of the ...

Monte Albán Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexico, Mexican state of Oaxaca (17.043° N, 96.767°W). The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain i ...

, zenith tube *

Palenque Palenque (; Yucatec Maya: ), also anciently known in the Itza Language as Lakamhaʼ ("Big Water or Big Waters"), was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that perished in the 8th century. The Palenque ruins date from ca. 226 BC to ca. 799 AD. ...

La Quemada La Quemada is an archeological site. It is located in the Villanueva Municipality, in the state of Zacatecas, about 56 km south of the city of Zacatecas on Fed 54 Zacatecas– Guadalajara, in Mexico. History Given the distance between La ...

El Tajín El Tajín is a pre-Columbian archeological site in southern Mexico and is one of the largest and most important cities of the Classic era of Mesoamerica. A part of the Classic Veracruz culture, El Tajín flourished from 600 to 1200 CE and duri ...

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is known today as t ...

, the pecked-cross circles as survey-markers *

Tulum Tulum (, yua, Tulu'um) is the site of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city which served as a major port for Coba, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The ruins are situated on cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Carib ...

Uxmal Uxmal (Yucatec Maya: ''Óoxmáal'' ) is an ancient Maya city of the classical period located in present-day Mexico. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Maya culture, along with Palenque, Chichen Itza and Calakmul ...

, Venus alignment of the "Governor's Palace" *

Xochicalco Xochicalco () is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in Miacatlán Municipality in the western part of the Mexican state of Morelos. The name ''Xochicalco'' may be translated from Nahuatl as "in the house of Flowers". The site is located 38 ...

, zenith tube *

Yagul Yagul is an archaeological site and former city-state associated with the Zapotec civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The site was declared one of the country's four Natural Monuments on 13 October 19 ...

Netherlands

* Funnel Beaker Culture megalith graves ("hunebedden") in the eastern Netherlands might be oriented on moonrises.

North Macedonia

* Kokino Situated 1030 m above sea level on the Tatićev Kamen Summit near

Kumanovo Kumanovo ( mk, Куманово ; also known by other alternative names) is a city in North Macedonia and the seat of Kumanovo Municipality, the largest municipality in the country. Kumanovo lies above sea level and is surrounded by the K ...

.(disputed)

Palestine

Tell es-Sultan Tell es-Sultan ( ar, تل السلطان, ''lit.'' Sultan's Hill), also known as Tel Jericho ( he, תל יריחו) or Ancient Jericho, is a UNESCO-nominated archaeological site in the West Bank, in the State of Palestine, located adjacent to th ...

also known as Tel Jericho, is the site of ancient and biblical Jericho and today a UNESCO-nominated archaeological site in the West Bank.

Pakistan

Lahore Fort The Lahore Fort ( ur, , lit=Royal Fort, translit=Shāhī Qilā, label= Punjabi and Urdu) is a citadel in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. The fortress is located at the northern end of walled city Lahore, and spreads over an area greater than 20 ...

Mohenjo Daro Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Taxila *

Harrapa Harappa (; Urdu/ pnb, ) is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The Bronze Age Harappan civilisation, now more often called the Indus Valley Civilisation, is named after the site, which takes its name from a mode ...

* Makli Graveyard

Peru

Buena Vista Buena Vista, meaning "good view" in Spanish, may refer to: Places Canada *Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador, with the name being originally derived from “Buena Vista” *Buena Vista, Saskatchewan *Buena Vista, Saskatoon, a neighborhood in ...

Chankillo Chanquillo or Chankillo is an ancient monumental complex in the Peruvian coastal desert, found in the Casma-Sechin basin in the Ancash Department of Peru. The ruins include the hilltop Chankillo fort, the nearby Thirteen Towers solar observato ...

* Cusco * Machu Picchu *

Nazca Lines The Nazca Lines are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BCE and 500 CE by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and l ...

Choquequirao Choquequirao (possibly from Quechua ''chuqi'' metal, ''k'iraw'' crib, cot) is an Incan site in southern Peru, similar in structure and architecture to Machu Picchu. The ruins are buildings and terraces at levels above and below Sunch'u Pa ...

Ollantaytambo Ollantaytambo ( qu, Ullantaytampu) is a town and an Inca archaeological site in southern Peru some by road northwest of the city of Cusco. It is located at an altitude of above sea level in the district of Ollantaytambo, province of Urubamb ...

Portugal

Almendres Cromlech The Cromlech of the Almendres ( pt, Cromeleque dos Almendres/Cromeleque na Herdade dos Almendres) is a megalithic complex (commonly known as the ''Almendres Cromlech''), located 4.5 road km WSW of the village of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe, in th ...

* Anta Grande do Zambujeiro * Dolmen of Cunha Baixa

Romania

Sarmizegetusa Regia Sarmizegetusa Regia, also Sarmisegetusa, Sarmisegethusa, Sarmisegethuza, Ζαρμιζεγεθούσα (''Zarmizegethoúsa'') or Ζερμιζεγεθούση (''Zermizegethoúsē''), was the capital and the most important military, religious an ...

Russia

Arkaim Arkaim (russian: Аркаим) is an archaeological site, dated to 2050-1900 BCE, of an ancient fortified settlement, belonging to Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Urals, north-northwest of the village of Amursky and ...

Saudi Arabia

* Kaaba, has its corners and walls aligned or oriented towards risings and settings of celestial objescts.

Spain

Antequera Dolmens Site The Antequera Dolmens Site is a cultural heritage ensemble comprising three cultural monuments (the Dolmen of Menga, Dolmen of Viera and Tholos of El Romeral) and 2 natural mountain features (the Peña de los Enamorados and El Torcal) in and ne ...

Peña de los Enamorados Peña de los Enamorados ("The Lovers' Rock") is a mountain near the city of Antequera, Málaga Province, Andalusia, Spain. It reaches a height of 880 metres above sea level. Name The mountain was named after a legend from the local oral traditi ...

Dolmen of Menga __NOTOC__ The Dolmen of Menga ( es, Dolmen de Menga) is a megalithic burial mound called a tumulus, a long barrow form of dolmen, dating from 3750-3650 BCE approximately. It is near Antequera, Málaga, Spain. It is one of the largest known anci ...

Syria

* Rujm el-Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center, in the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

, territory occupied by Israel. It is believed that the site was used as an ancient calendar. At the times of the two equinoxes, the sun's rays would pass between two rocks, at the eastern edge of the compound. The entrance to the center opens on sunrise of the summer solstice. Other notches in the walls indicate the spring and fall equinoxes. It is also believed the site was used for astronomical observations of the constellations, probably for religious calculations. Researchers found the site was built with dimensions and scales common for other period structures, and partly based on the stars' positions.

Sweden

Ale's Stones Ale's Stones ( sv, Ales stenar or sv, label=none, Ale stenar) is a megalithic monument in Scania in southern Sweden. It is a stone ship, oval in outline, with the stones at each end markedly larger than the rest. It is long formed by 59 large bo ...

Switzerland

* Belchen System * Columna Jovis

Turkey

Göbekli Tepe Göbekli Tepe (, "Potbelly Hill"; known as ''Girê Mirazan'' or ''Xirabreşkê'' in Kurdish) is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between 9500 and 8000 BCE, the ...

United Kingdom

Avebury Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in ...

* Ballochroy *

Boscawen-Un Boscawen-Ûn () is a Bronze Age stone circle close to St Buryan in Cornwall, UK. It consists of nineteen upright stones in an ellipse with another, leaning, middle stone just south of the centre. There is a west-facing gap in the circle, which ...

Winter Solstice sunrise out of the Lamorna Gap *

Bryn Celli Ddu Bryn Celli Ddu is a prehistoric site on the Welsh island of Anglesey located near Llanddaniel Fab. Its name means 'the mound in the dark grove'. It was archaeologically excavated between 1928 and 1929. Visitors can get inside the mound thr ...

– aligned with the summer solstice such that light illuminates a quartz rich stone at the back of the chamber *

Callanish Stones The Callanish Stones (or "Callanish I": gd, Clachan Chalanais or ) are an arrangement of standing stones placed in a cruciform pattern with a central stone circle. They were erected in the late Neolithic era, and were a focus for ritual activi ...

Durrington Walls Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshire. ...

Maeshowe Maeshowe (or Maes Howe; non, Orkhaugr) is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland Orkney, Scotland. It was probably built around . In the archaeology of Scotland, it gives its name to the Maeshowe type of chambered ...

, it is aligned so that the rear wall of its central chamber, a rough cube of five yards square held up by a bracketed wall, is illuminated on the

. *

Prehistoric Orkney Prehistoric Orkney refers only to the prehistory of the Orkney archipelago of Scotland that begins with human occupation. (The islands’ history before human occupation is part of the geology of Scotland.) Although some records referring ...

* St Edward the Confessor's Church, Leek. Traditional site for observing a

double sunset A double sunset is a rare astro-geographical phenomenon, in which the sun appears to set twice in the same evening from a specific viewing-point. A double sunrise may also occur in a similar situation. Such phenomena may have been regarded as si ...

. * Stonehenge (Generally accepted). *

Woodhenge Woodhenge is a Neolithic Class II henge and timber circle monument within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire, England. It is north-east of Stonehenge, in Durrington parish, just north of the town of Amesbury. Discovery Woodhe ...

United States

America's Stonehenge America's Stonehenge is a privately owned tourist attraction and archaeological site consisting of a number of large rocks and stone structures scattered around roughly within the town of Salem, New Hampshire, in the United States. It is open to ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

* Anderson Mounds,

Anderson, Indiana Anderson, named after Chief William Anderson, is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Indiana, United States. It is the principal city of the Anderson, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses Madison County. Anderson ...

. *

Bighorn Medicine Wheel The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspe ...

Cahokia The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...

, large Mississippian culture site with numerous solar and other alignments **

Cahokia Woodhenge The Cahokia Woodhenge was a series of large timber circles located roughly to the west of Monks Mound at the Mississippian culture Cahokia archaeological site near Collinsville, Illinois. They are thought to have been constructed between 900 and ...

, equinox and summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned

timber circle In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct fr ...

Mound 72 Mound 72 is a small ridgetop mound located roughly to the south of Monks Mound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Early in the site's history, the location began as a circle of 48 large wooden posts known as a "woodhenge". The woodhe ...

, summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned burial mound * Casa Malpaís Archaeological Site, Springerville, Arizona. Summer solstice at noon and sunset. *

Chaco Canyon Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote c ...

, cardinal orientations, meridian alignment, inter-pueblo alignments ** The 3-Slab Site atop Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, which marks the solstices. *

Chimney Rock Archaeological Area Chimney Rock National Monument is a U.S. National Monument in San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado which includes an archaeological site. This area is located in Archuleta County, Colorado, between Durango, Colorado, Durango and Pa ...

, near

Pagosa Springs, Colorado The Town of Pagosa Springs (Ute dialect, Ute language: Pagwöösa, Navajo language: Tó Sido Háálį́) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat, the most populous community ...

* Crack Cave at

Picture Canyon (Colorado) Picture Canyon, located in the Comanche National Grassland in southeastern Colorado, was named for its prehistoric rock art. There is evidence of prehistoric inhabitation of sites in Picture Canyon by Paleo-Indian, Archaic and Post-Archaic cultu ...

Comanche National Grassland Comanche National Grassland is a National Grassland located in southeastern Colorado, United States. It is the sister grassland of Cimarron National Grassland and contains both prairie grasslands and canyons. It is separated into two sections, ...

* Emerald Mound and Village Site,

Lebanon, Illinois Lebanon is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The population was 4,418 at the 2010 census and had decreased to an estimated 4,256 as of 2018. Like many other places in " Little Egypt" or Southern Illinois, Lebanon was named afte ...

* Haleets on Bainbridge Island in Washington state * Hovenweep Castle * Holly Solstice Panel in

Hovenweep National Monument Hovenweep National Monument is located on land in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah, between Cortez, Colorado and Blanding, Utah on the Cajon Mesa of the Great Sage Plain. Shallow tributaries run through the wide and deep canyons into t ...

* Moorehead Circle,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

* Octagon Earthworks *

Serpent Mound The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot-long (411 m), three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located in Peebles, Ohio. The mound itself resides on the Serpent Mound crater plateau, running along the Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. ...

* Skystone near Naches Trail in Washington state * Wally's Dome in

Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico) The Sacramento Mountains are a mountain range in the south-central part of the U.S. state of New Mexico, lying just east of Alamogordo in Otero County (small portions of the range lie in Lincoln County and Chaves County). From north to south, t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Archaeoastronomical sites by country Archaeoastronomy * .