The World's Oldest Buildings Iceberg | PART 1

I live in far western Canada, so something that's always sort of bugged me is that there aren't really that many old buildings among the endless expanse of suburban houses, shops, and high-rises you have to drive around every day. I mean, a while ago, I actually used to live only a few blocks away from my province's oldest standing building, and it's a wooden storage shed in a fur trading fort built in the 1840s. I know some European viewers might be bursting out in laughter right now, because I know for a fact that a lot of you probably have views of buildings centuries and centuries older from out your window. Or maybe you even live in one. It's not impossible. And as a person obsessed with everything old, that's one of the main things about Europe I'm really jealous of. The fact that you guys can just walk into such ancient structures, sometimes stretching back thousands of years to the Neolithic, on a whim. Like, standing in the middle of an enormous gothic cathedral or huddling under a giant megalith is a magical thing. It's not like you're transported back in time or anything sappy like that, but it is exciting to be in the same exact artificial space as people from countless generations ago, who lived in completely different worlds. It's like the building is an out-of-place cameo in the modern landscape, which is often pretty dreary in comparison, but as soon as you go inside it, you're the one out of place, making a tiny out-of-place cameo in a story way bigger and way older than yours. A story that's been here much longer than you have and that will, in all likelihood, continue to be here long after you've gone. So that all got me thinking, what are the oldest buildings on the planet that you can actually just walk into still? I could just drone on about the absolute oldest stone age buildings in the world, in the Levant, in Europe, because the answer is somewhat cut and dry, but where's the fun in that? Instead, I want to go country by country to see what each individual nation's oldest building is, because they all tell wildly different stories that are really unique to themselves. And I've found that the real oldest building in these countries is usually completely different to one that a quick google search will show you. But I do have some criteria. For a building to have the honor and distinction of being its country's oldest, it can't be in complete ruins, like most ancient structures. You have to actually be able to walk into it, to stand or at least crouch in the shade of what's hopefully an original roof, because if it's got walls and a roof, it's a proper building. If it doesn't, no. I know rock-cut tombs. It has to be an artificial standing structure. But I've still packed in a ton of honorable mentions to tell as full a story as I possibly can. And this isn't one of my bog-standard icebergs either. I'm not going to start with the most well-known buildings until I eventually make my way to the most obscure, because instead, I'm going country by country, alphabetically, since I find that that's a way more interesting and rewarding approach. But I will still keep track of how well-known these old buildings seem to be, and I'll reveal my rankings at the end. But bear in mind, this thing's far from complete. So without further ado, let's begin. And we're starting off with Afghanistan. I was sort of spoiled for choice because there are just so many ancient buildings in Afghanistan, from great medieval mosques to Ahmed's Buddhist stupas to ancient Zoroastrian fire temples. But there are some more unexpected traces of even earlier eras, like the Hellenistic period, starting with the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors in the late 4th century BC, when this region of Central Asia was known as Bactria and was ruled by Greek kings. Chief among them are the ruins of possibly once called Alexandria on the Oxus, the ancient name for the Amu Darya river the site sits beside, in the far north of the country. Truly magnificent artifacts, showcasing a strange blend of Greek and Central Asian culture thousands of kilometers away from the Mediterranean have been unearthed here. But we're concerned with the buildings, and whether or not they're still recognizable as such. Luckily, there were a bunch of them, fitting in with the standard Greek urban setup, with an elevated acropolis, a theater, a gymnasium decorated with mosaic floors, temples to Greek gods, great colonnades, a fountain, and even a ritzy palace. As you can see, these were pretty impressive in their heyday, until the site was abandoned around 145 BC. Unluckily, and despite all the reconstructions of them, there isn't too much information regarding to what exact extent they've survived to the present. You can guess that some, especially the main temple, are still pretty substantial, just based on pictures alone from when the French were excavating the site in the 60s and 70s. But as you probably know, a lot has happened in Afghanistan since then. The site was reportedly pilfered in the chaos of the 80s and 90s, after the French archaeologists were forced out. And it's currently pockmarked with the traces of thousands of illegal excavations, so we might have to look elsewhere. And the buildings of Ayakhanum are probably more of an honorable mention, since I haven't actually seen any surviving roofed rooms you can actually still enter. So the title of oldest building in Afghanistan should probably go to either the Goldara Stupa, 30 kilometers north of Kabul, which dates to the time of the Kushan Empire, based on gold coins found there, dating to the 2nd century AD, or Topdara Stupa, nearby, the country's largest remaining stupa, which is pretty impressive. These are remnants from a time when Afghanistan was a center, even sort of a cradle, of Mahayana Buddhism. Ah, lovely Albania. I haven't told many people this, but I used to be obsessed with this place, and I'm still not totally sure why, though it makes sense. There's just so much to its history, from a deranged, bunker-addicted dictator, to the world's most nicotine-addicted king, to the legendary hero Skanderbeg. There's a lot to just the country's recent history, but there's also a lot to its medieval and ancient history, too. The first buildings I thought of when wondering what Albania's oldest building could be was a little mosaic-covered grotto I had seen among pictures of the great Roman and Byzantine port city of Dyrrhachium, now the modern city of Durres, on the Adriatic coast. I then found out that these mosaics are part of an early Byzantine chapel, likely dedicated to Saint Asti, or Astius, the city's first bishop, who was martyred there at the end of the 1st century, which makes sense, because the chapel was built right on part of the grandstands of the city's ancient amphitheater, thought to date to around that time, the reign of Emperor Trajan, though was remodeled later, after an earthquake in 346 AD, before eventually gladiatorial fights stopped there completely, in the late 4th or 5th or even 6th centuries AD, when tastes changed. Durres also features late antique or early Byzantine defensive walls, which also remain largely intact, but regardless, the amphitheater is probably older, and it has some pretty amazingly intact stairwells and interior passageways, maybe because it was eventually forgotten under an array of Ottoman houses before being rediscovered by Albanian archaeologists in 1966. But Dyrrhachium is just one of many ancient cities that once sprang up in ancient Albania, made up by a combination of Illyrians, Greeks, and Romans, like at one place There's, amazingly, an even earlier, beautifully decorated Roman building, from the days of the Roman Republic, in the late 2nd century BC. It's called the Monument of Aganathetes, and it was an entrance to the Boulaterion, the assembly place of the city's council, opposite its Odeon, though I'm not sure to what degree it's been reconstructed over the years. But moving beyond classical antiquity, there are actually some way, way older, megalithic dolmen tombs, or at least one. This insanely impressive one, called Vranisht Dolmen, sitting high up in the mountains, even further south along the coast, which is thought to date to anywhere between the 4th to early 3rd millennium BC, late in the Neolithic, or early in the Bronze Age. Like many of the great megaliths in Britain, and the locals have given it some pretty sick names, like this one, Stone in the Sky, or this one, which means Table of the God. And you might say, oh come on, this isn't a building, but hey, I see some walls, and a roof, so I'm happy. Let's move on. Oh and also, there's some enigmatic pictographs nearby, painted on cave walls, which might be connected, who knows. Algeria. Algeria's absolutely filled with shockingly intact ancient Roman cities, like Jamila, but I wondered if there was anything from before that. At first my mind went to the Phoenicians, or the Carthaginians, but unfortunately, the only Punic buildings left standing are tombs in Tunisia and Libya. But luckily, there is another sort of massive ancient tomb found in Algeria, the great stone tombs of the kings of ancient Numidia and Mauritania, which you might recognize from the history of late Republican Rome, or if you play Rome Total War. The most famous one is the massive mausoleum of King Juba II and Queen Cleopatra Selene II, known locally as the Cuber Airumia, on the coast just west of Algiers. Both of the royals once interred here were very important side characters during Rome's transition to empire. Juba was the Roman client king of both Mauritania and Numidia, and he was a personal friend and ally of Augustus, as well as a prolific scholar who wrote books on history and culture, including something somewhat ironically entitled Roman Archaeology. He even sent an expedition out to the Canary Islands, which he named after the dogs, or canaria, found there. Apparently it's not named after the bird. And Juba's influential wife, Cleopatra Selene, who appeared on her own coins, was just as interesting, especially since she was the daughter of Cleopatra, the famous one, and her lover, Marc Antony. But unfortunately, neither of them are actually here anymore. The interior of the tomb consists of a spiraling passage that ends in two big vaulted chambers, where the royal couple were presumably buried, but nothing survives of that, as far as I know. But there's another older Numidian royal tomb, with this same truncated cone layout, much further to the southeast. Its cylindrical base is encircled by badly weathered Doric columns, covered by a possibly Egyptian-style corniche, and it's riddled with bullet holes. Actually, both of the tombs we've talked about are, but regardless, there's debate over when exactly this thing dates to, with some saying it belongs to King Masinissa, who founded Numidia in the first half of the 2nd century BC, and others say it's from way back in the 4th century BC. Fun fact, Masinissa helped defeat Carthage during the 2nd Punic War, but that didn't stop his Carthaginian wife from drinking poison to avoid being triumphed in Rome. Weird story. Anyways, you can apparently enter this tomb too, since a hidden passage that was once blocked up leads to a burial chamber at the heart of the structure. But unfortunately, those precautions didn't save it from being completely looted of everything that was originally there. But there's yet another building said to be Masinissa's tomb, near Constantia, closer to the coast. Maybe he had two bodies? Who knows. But yet again, big prehistoric dolmens knock the ball out of the park. Some three to seven thousand of them can be found in eastern Algeria, close to that tomb of Masinissa that's called the Tomb of Masinissa, in a place called the Rocnia Necropolis, again dating to the late Neolithic or Bronze Age, and spanning a two kilometer long cliff edge, making it really picturesque. It was excavated in 1868 by a French guy who otherwise just studied mollusks, for whatever reason. I have no idea why. But regardless, I think all of these dolmen tombs here are great candidates for being Algeria's oldest building. Andorra. Now despite how small it is, Andorra is a super underrated country. I got to really like when I was studying it for an as yet unreleased video on the archaeology of Europe's microstates. There are some absolutely amazing little Romanesque churches here, whose walls are emblazoned with colorful murals, or at least were. A great example is the Church of Santa Coloma, which had these amazing 12th century paintings centered on an 8th century name. I say had, because although both the church and the paintings both still survive, the paintings were removed by Germans and held in Berlin until 2007 when they finally went on display in Andorra again. Which is so weird, Andorra is one of the only countries in Europe the Germans haven't occupied. And as a whole, Andorra is just filled with a seemingly endless array of other little charming Romanesque churches, also often colorfully decorated with murals, that have either remained partially intact or have been taken elsewhere. An example of the former is Saint Juan de Castells, and an example of the latter is Saint Miquel de Engolasters, whose paintings have been taken to the National Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona. But regardless, yet again, megalithic stone cysts just take the cake. These three tombs, two of which were found intact, are part of a site called La Feixa del Morro, excavated back in the 80s, which likely belongs to one of the first early European farming communities to set up shop in the Pyrenees way back during the Middle Neolithic in the late 5th millennium BC. And so these are the oldest buildings in Andorra by a long shot. But I suppose the oldest one you can actually enter is Santa Coloma. Angola The oldest buildings in Angola are from as early as the 1400s, since it seems that the two top contenders are both remnants of early Portuguese involvement with the Kingdom of Congo, which despite its name was largely centered on northern Angola, with its capital at a place called Mbanza, Congo, or Sao Salvador, to the Portuguese. The Portuguese managed to convert the king, who they called Joao I, around 1491, and so they built the Cathedral of the Holy Savior of Congo in the capital that same year. It's known locally as Kulumbimbi, and it's said to be the oldest Catholic church in all of sub-Saharan Africa. But only four years later, Joao wound up converting back to his original religion because Christianity wouldn't let him have multiple wives, a political necessity for him. But his son Afonso I was way more devout, and expanded the church around 1534. It was then burnt down around 1570, when a group of fierce foreign warriors known as the Jagas temporarily captured the city, so it had to be rebuilt. It was then finally abandoned in the late 17th century after being destroyed in a civil war. Also, interestingly, it's possible that a number of Congo's kings, semi-mummified by being smoked over a fire, still lie buried underneath it to this day. And I should also mention that the capital, Luanda, also has a pretty sick 16th century fortress rising above it, called the Fortaleza de São Miguel. Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbuda's oldest buildings are surprisingly new, despite its recorded history stretching back to Columbus. I mean, he's the who named them. And both of these are British constructions from the early 1700s. The most imposing of them has to be the fort known as Martello Tower, on the southern coast of Barbuda. It was built back in 1745 by Sir Charles Knowles, who had just fought against the Spanish in the War of Jenkins' Ear. Totally a real thing, I'm not just making that up, I swear. Martello Tower is a fort that consists of Martello Tower itself, which served as a prototype for many other British imperial Martello Towers built around the world into the 19th century, and a small pentagonal fort, which all in all would have once fielded 10 cannons. At the same time, the islands were dominated by the slave-owning Codrington family of Gloucester, who used Barbuda as a provisioning station for their sugar plantations on Antigua. They built a sizable house on Barbuda near the town that still bears their name, known as Highland House. And it's possible that some of the ruined buildings there date to as far back as the 1720s. But of course, they're in ruins, they don't really count according to our criteria, but worth mentioning. Argentina. Originally, it seemed that like some other Latin American countries, the oldest standing building in Argentina would be an early Spanish colonial church. For example, if you ask Google, it'll tell you that Argentina's oldest building is the Nuestra Senora de la Asunción Cathedral in Cordoba. Work started on it back in 1582, but it did take over a century to complete, and a lot of it was built in the 18th century, which is why it looks so Baroque. But I think we should instead focus in on Argentina's often forgotten, but very interesting pre-Columbian ruins, mainly focused around the northwest of the country. And a prime example of them are the ruins of the Ciudad Sagrada de Quilmes in Argentina's far west. It's a fortified city built over 75 hilly acres by the Quilmet tribe of the indigenous group, and the buildings here could date back to as far as 850 AD. At its height, this labyrinth of terraces and houses and llama corrals may have housed up to between 3,000 and 5,000 people, with 10,000 people total in the surrounding area. But it doesn't really seem like any of the buildings here survive beyond their stone foundations, except for ones that seem to be reconstructed maybe. I'm not sure what to make of this building in the bottom left corner of the image. The Quilmes fiercely resisted both Inca and Spanish incursions until 1667 when they were defeated and then forced on a devastating death march for thousands of kilometers, eventually settling near the eponymous city of Quilmes near Buenos Aires. But while doing research on this, I found that there are actually a bunch of other sites nearby in the neighboring province of Catamarca, including one called Fuerte Cuemado on top of a steep ridge only accessible by a single path. And most interestingly of all, for our purposes, what looks to be an original archway, which has its own name, La Ventanita or Inti Huatana, does survive intact. And this site is pretty old too, because it dates to even before the Inca began using it to dominate the surrounding area. So given that you can just barely stand under the shade of a stone roof that might be as old as that, here you could maybe consider this Argentina's oldest building. And this archway is even more interesting, because it's oriented towards the rising sun during the summer solstice. But on top of that, there is also the massive site of Chincal de Quimiville, a major regional center built by the Inca between 1457 and 1536. Now this site preserves a bunch of imposing buildings, including some that have been called calancas, which have been variously identified as communal homes or barracks or storage rooms. Many of these still feature intact doorways, though the perishable roofs of the rooms they once led to were gone. But if we do count La Ventanita, these must count for something too. I can't be that unfair. The site also features what you could maybe call pseudo pyramids. They're natural hills, but the Inca built giant staircases into them so they could be used as altars. And then after the Inca empire fell, the site was reused by both the Spanish and then the native Calchaqui people as military bases. And in that order, before finally, as a result of that, the site was permanently destroyed in 1636 by the Spanish. In a somewhat similar vein, there's Inca Huasi in La Salta province, which was used by both the Inca, previous groups from as early as around 1000 AD, and later Spaniards as a mining hub. It has some impressive buildings, including this one with a partially surviving roof made of flagstones, cacti, and mud plaster. Apparently something called the Inca Chair sits within it. I think this humble little square building here is probably our best and most robust candidate for being Argentina's oldest building. But before we leave South America, I do want to mention that the walls of the buildings at a variety of other sites in Catamarca still stand tall too, even if they're not attached to roofs anymore. In particular, I want to shout out Huatungasta, Pucara La Alhambra, which sits on a volcano and is very volcano-themed in appearance, and Pucara de Aconquilla, which is associated with a bunch of crazy ancient artworks that look really surprisingly abstract for their age. And on top of that, the site does seem to preserve some surviving arches and windows, so there's that. Armenia. Armenia has a super, super, super long history, so this is a bit hard. Let's start off with one of the most famous ancient monuments in Armenia, the ancient and typically Greco-Roman Basalt Temple of Garni, just east of Yerevan, built in the latter half of the 1st century AD by the Armenian king Tiridates I, probably after he made peace with his one-time enemy, Rome, under Nero. And it was likely dedicated to the sun god Mithras, though its date and function are still debated, and it may have been a royal mausoleum. It stands near the ruins of Tiridates' palaces, and they're all perched on top of some very picturesque hills. If you look closely, you might notice that its stones look a bit incongruous, and that's because it was pieced back together from 1969 to 75 under Soviet rule after completely collapsing during a big earthquake in 1679 that also tore down a number of other ancient churches. So let's go back a bit further. I have to give an honorable mention to Erebuni Fortress in Yerevan itself, which was built all the way back in the 7th to 8th centuries BC, so the Iron Age, under the Kingdom of Urartu, a neighbor of the Assyrian Empire. Its mighty stone walls still stand tall after all this time, so that has to count for something. Though, like with the Temple of Garni, they were apparently restored to some extent during Soviet rule, and there are some fully reconstructed buildings on the site, painted with approximations of the stunning monumental wall paintings, which were once visible here, that have been moved to a nearby museum, and they are pretty incredible. The remnants of another sizable Urartian fortress called Tishabani are also nearby. But of course, to find our real answer, we're gonna have to go back to prehistory. Armenia is home to a number of prehistoric megaliths, including some rather, uh, saucy ones. Most are standing stones arranged in circles or avenues, but there are some larger structures among them, like this big circular building, at the center of this site in southern Armenia, called Karahunj, also known as Zoret's Karer, aka Armenia's Stonehenge. There does seem to be a part of this where you can theoretically walk under ancient masonry, so I think this has to take the cake. There's been tons of debate about the site's astronomical significance, and controversy surrounding its exact age, but a German survey in 2000 concluded that it was used as a burial ground, and that these circles are enormous stone vaulted tombs, used from the middle bronze age to the iron age. But those giant upright standing stones might actually be the remnants from a much later Hellenistic or Roman era defensive wall, when the site was reused as a wartime refuge. Though it is odd that they have so many holes poked through them, which could be connected to ancient astronomy, I don't know. Australia. The oldest surviving building in Australia dates to the first phase of its exploration by the British, in the late 18th century, specifically the year 1793, because there seems to be pretty unanimous agreement that it's this fancy farmhouse, named Elizabeth Farm. It's in Rosehill, a suburb of Sydney, overlooking a river flowing into nearby Sydney Cove, where the colony of New South Wales had been established just five years earlier, in 1788. The attached estate is where some of the earliest European plants and sheep to come to Australia were raised, and the reason why it's called Elizabeth Farm is because the person who raised those plants and those livestock, and one of its first owners, was named Elizabeth MacArthur, and she was one of the most prominent women of early Sydney. She was the wife of army officer and politician John MacArthur, but more interestingly, she's also been called Australia's first female scientist, since she was an avid amateur astronomer and botanist. Her farm is now a somewhat bland looking living history museum, but there's an earlier and frankly even more interesting structure on the opposite end of the Australian continent, that unfortunately only survives as some foundations, the Weeb Hayes Stone Fort on West Wallaby Island, also more ominously known as Slaughter Point, which dates back to 1629. It was built by survivors of the infamous shipwreck of the VOC ship Batavia, and more specifically, a detachment of some 20 soldiers sent there as part of a trick by the deranged leader of the survivors, Jeronimus Cornelis Zune. Cornelis Zune ostensibly sent the soldiers to the island the fort is on, from the other island, Beacon Island, where all the other survivors were, to find fresh water, because besides rain, they had literally none of it. But in reality, he was abandoning them there so he could isolate the rest of the group, and unleash his own horrific reign of with a band of murderous followers, ultimately killing 125 of his former shipmates, including a bunch of women and children, probably so that they could more easily hijack any rescue ship and become pirates. The soldiers under Weeb Hayes actually did find water, but soon more of their former shipmates began trickling onto their island, revealing what Cornelis Zune was doing. So they fortified the island in case of an attack, which was a good call, because a series of bloody battles between the two sides ensued throughout the summer of 1629. Ultimately, a rescue ship did come, and the perpetrators were hung on a nearby island. But these are just the oldest European-made buildings in Australia. Contrary to what I first thought, there are actually some surviving remains of pre-contact Aboriginal structures, considerably older than the ones we've just talked about, though again, they are limited to their foundations. But if weren't, they might be the oldest buildings we've talked about today. Off Australia's northwestern coast on Rosemary Island in the Dampier Archipelago, you can find the foundations of circular stone houses, including one spanning some 30 metres, and these have recently been dated to as far back as 8 to 9 thousand years ago. They might have originally been roofed with skins or plant material, though that's obviously long gone. It's possible that the otherwise mobile hunter-gatherers who built these were forced into such comparatively cramped spaces on this island because rising sea levels brought about by melting glaciers cut the islands off from the mainland, and would have flooded the coastal plains once available to them. Rosemary Island is also home to a number of standing stones, some of which were engraved, like this one with a fish carved into it, which I assume is the equivalent of middle-aged dads putting their biggest catches on Facebook. Austria! Okay, finally, the first country I've actually been to myself. I suspected that the oldest building here would probably be Roman, since Vienna itself contains some visible Roman ruins, just outside the Hofburg. Sort of mixed in with Renaissance stuff, but I was shocked to learn that a whole Roman tower survives in pretty great shape in the town of Tulln, sitting on the Danube just northwest of Vienna. Which makes sense, since it was once a cavalry camp on the Danube Limes named Comagenus, or Comagena, the sources aren't too clear on that. And their fancy Roman tower dates to approximately 370 AD, during the reign of the soldier-emperor Valentinian I, and while the threat of Germanic barbarians loomed over the empire, so it has 2.6 meter thick walls of stone and brick to match. But of course, this one tower unfortunately could not stop the fall of Rome, or at least the Western Roman Empire, and according to the Christian writer Eugippius in his account of the life of Saint Severinus of Noricum from the late 5th century, entering the city was a challenge for him because it was occupied by a troop of barbarians, though they did still live alongside Romans. And long afterwards, in the Middle Ages, the tower was reused to store salt, so it became known as the Sahlsturm. Unfortunately, the roof of the tower isn't original, but those massive stone walls leading up to it are, so I hardly think that it doesn't count, even despite my hang-up about roofs, though even despite that, you apparently still can't go inside it for whatever reason. And there are also some really amazing Roman ruins at Carnuntum, the former capital of Upper Pannonia, a bit east of Vienna, near the border with Slovakia, where Marcus Aurelius spent much of his time during the Marcomannic Wars, where he was writing his famous meditations and meeting with Russell Crowe. Carnuntum has its own grass-covered amphitheater, at least one mosaic, and some hypocaust floors from a bathhouse, which you could sorta call a surviving roofed building, I guess, but you don't have to stretch it that far because hey, look at that big arch, that's what I call a roof right there, and old illustrations seem to indicate that this thing is original. Interestingly, it's partially built out of spolia, taken from even older buildings, so it was probably built rather quickly and after the town's apogee. The late historian Ammianus Marcellinus recounts how Constantius II, another 4th century warrior emperor and son of Constantine the Great, built some triumphal arches for himself, in Pannonia, where this is, so he probably had it built sometime during his reign in the mid-4th century. As such, it's probably just a decade or so older than the tower at Tulm. Azerbaijan According to most sources, the oldest building in Azerbaijan seems to be another tower, called the Maiden Tower, or Kiz Kalasi, this time on the Caspian Sea shore of Baku. The lower courses of this tower were built in pre-Islamic times, and likely once functioned as the tower of a Zoroastrian fire temple, from Baku's original iteration, as a town called something like Atashi Bagawan, or Ateshi Bakwan, and this is prime real estate for a fire temple because natural fires just spring out of the ground at various places around here because of all the natural gas in it. Some scholars think that the Maiden Tower dates to as early as the 8th century B.C., but more reasonable estimates assign it to the 4th to 6th centuries A.D., though it could still just be from the Middle Ages as part of the city's medieval defenses, so in other words, nobody really knows. And no one really knows why it's called Maiden Tower in the first place. It might be referring to a Zoroastrian goddess, or the main legends associated with the place, which seem to be important stories in Azerbaijani culture. One involves an unfortunate princess jumping off of it after her father, the king, fell in love with her, and obviously she wanted to avoid all that. This even inspired the country's first ballet, which is quite a choice. But there's another legend that sort of bridges the gap between the Zoroastrian goddess theory and this story about how when ancient Baku was imperiled by a besieging army, a girl with fire-colored hair just sort of spawned out of the sacred fire in the and then beat the enemy commander in one-on-one combat after hiding her hair and the fact that she was a girl with a helmet. In both versions of the story, I've seen the two fall in love after she defeats him, but in one variant, she spares him, and in the other, she kills him, and then herself. Azerbaijani fairy tales are pretty intense, apparently. And then there's another interesting building located in this weird little enclave of Azerbaijan beyond Armenia and in the city of Nakhchivan. It's another imposing structure more securely dated to the end of antiquity, known as Yazdegerd Castle, named after the Sassanid Persian king who built it in the dying days of his empire, right as the Islamic conquest was about to overrun it. But even though these are all from late antiquity, I was still able to find what seems to be a far older roof structure. This megalithic chambered cairn nestled into a hillside at a place called Bozdag or Gray Hill, just west of Baku. Bozdag itself sort of resembles a guy lying on his back, and that might explain why this is just one of a number of other unique monuments scattered around the area, including stone circles, petroglyphs, cisterns, and this strange passageway structure. And this cairn is one of the only examples of its kind in the whole country, so it's definitely pretty interesting, and I wish we knew more about it. So that just about wraps it up for the A's. This video is a bit of an experiment. If it gets over 100,000 views, then I'll continue the series, but if not, then you will never, ever learn what the oldest building in Zimbabwe is. Never. But regardless, here's the actual rankings I have of these buildings' obscurity, or lack thereof, with places like Australia and Azerbaijan at the top, you know, because Australia is a very large and populous country, and because the Maiden Tower in Azerbaijan is literally on their money. So at least over there, it's a bit of a big deal. And in other news, my big pyramid video is still coming. I thought I'd be releasing it around, let's see, now, but it was becoming a bit of a slog, and this was a bit more fun to research, just because of how randomized it is. It is on its way though, and I am very, very excited to show you the 3D animations that have been made to depict the Giza Plateau. They were made by an incredibly talented professional artist, and they're genuinely documentary quality, so I can't wait to show them to you. And to end off, I can't forget to thank my esteemed patrons, Dhruv Singhal, Bhajan, Harrison Timperley, Doc Bossman, Kevin Ryan, Ayanami Amamami, Bombtombadil, Danny Banani, Little Bloober, James Kirk, Booga420, Alyssa P, Mark Elliott Cullen, Chemekwers Bitski, Jack Lester, Mithra Dadies, Jake the Snake, Liv Buller, Have a Cigar, Alex Clark, Jess Sullivan, Akune, Mark Krupnik, Mija Knee Dog, Michael, DaisiesforGhosts, Prince of Men, Julie Lau, Bean Burrito, Albert Vaklovshmeshkal, The Spoofer, Emily Kujo, Stevon, Gryphon Frost, Hippolyta, Magna de Broeker, Julia Erickson, JP Van Splunder, Joseph Talley, Petra S, Generic Brand, Ryan Gregg, Glubberbob, 20 Trillion, Skiku, Mason, Bread, Brandon Wood, Giovanna Lazzarini, Packer Terry, Skromodka, Artem, Chris J, Max S, The History Enjoyer, Daniel, Battery Stapler, Machado de Asis, Menda Pruska, Alex Palachichio, Lazy Ram, Weston Van Diver, Bored Lord, It's Premium, Yogg, Jane Geeky, Theodore, Ice, Kate Dalglish, Cameron Llewellyn, Lori Weeks, Brett O, CJ Carrera, Trico, Kevin Chachowski, Alco, Nigel, Freddy Fazbear, Artill, Aspergirl, DrKickass, Brandon Fint, DJPandaBear52, and our newest patrons, Nonprofit Prophet, Umar, Yes and No, Rebecca Baker, BoneGut, and Rainy Porterfield, and Toby, as well as EggWorld3D. You can tell I did not have this very well prepared. But anyways, see you in the next video. Goodbye.