The ornate miniature mansions were built for Istanbul's feathered residents.

A Turkish ghost town abandoned in a population exchange with Greece.

Hidden just under the waters around this Turkish island are the ruins of a once great city.

An abused and forgotten metropolis, abandoned for centuries.

This hunter-gatherer architecture is believed to be the oldest religious complex known.

A Lycian city of the dead carved into the hillside of Southern Turkey, complete with startlingly human touches.

These tombs were built into the side of a mountain so that ancient angels could reach the dead.

Roman ruins top white travertine terraces formed by ancient hot springs.

In this historic region, homes and churches are carved into ancient volcanic rock formations.

This remnant of an ancient Persian city is considered to be the world's largest single-span brick vault arch.

This former monument to an invented Iraqi victory was turned into a military camp during the subsequent invasion.

This ancient stone bridge is a hub for daredevils.

An ancient sanctuary that has long been a holy site for the Chaldean Christian Church.

A giant bisected onion dome remembers the Iraqis who died in the Iran-Iraq War.

The surviving pieces of an ancient aqueduct that may have fed into the lost Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Giant reed houses made in the marshes of Southern Iraq.

Ancient rock-cut tomb? Definitely. That of a great Median king? Unlikely.

A boiling wellspring flowing with natural gas burns in a continual blaze.

This beautiful arched gate is all that remains of the fortress the ancient mountaintop town of Amadiya once was.

An ancient fortified mound raised over the millennia from settlements built one on top of the other.

9th century Abbasid mosque, damaged in modern warfare.

The sacred shrine of the Yazidis.

Celebrated as a center of civilization, the remains of the ancient city have been nearly destroyed by greed, egoism, and war.

One of the holiest Shi'i shrines in Iran honors the life and death of a learned noblewoman who became a saint.