Where

Cave paintings at Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc

Ardèche region of southern France | Artists of the Aurignacian culture

Venus of Willendorf

Willendorf, Austria

Ziggurat at Ur

Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq (near Nasiriyah) | King Ur-Nammu

Epic of Gilgamesh

Sumer/Babylonia (Iraq, Kuwait) | Sîn-lēqi-unninni and unknown Sumerian & Babyloninan poets

The Code of Hammurabi

Sumer, Aakkad, Babylonia | Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria | Hriammurabi

Bronze Bells, Shang-Zhong Dynasty

China | Various Shang and Zhou Artists

Rig Veda

Indian Sub-continent | Compiled by several generations of Indo-Aryan priests/philosophers

Nok Terracottas, Africa

West Africa | Various Nok Artists

Egyptian Book of the Dead

Egypt

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

Deir el-Bahri, Egypt | Senenmut

Lion Gate at Mycenae

Argolis, Greece | Mycenaen Artists

Homer

coast of Asia Minor | modern Turkey 

Babylonian Creation Story: Enuma Elish

Mesopotamia | Iraq, SE Turkey, E Syria | Unknown Mesopotamian poet(s}

Navajo Night Chant

Canyon de Chelly |now eastern Arizona in the Navajo Nation | The Navajo

Olmec Heads, Mexico

San Lorenzo, Mexico | Various Olmec Artists

Sappho’s Poetry (fragments)

Greek island of Lesbos or possibly Sicily (where she may have been exiled for some time) | Sappho

The Dao De Jing

China | Laozi & others?

Nasca Lines of Peru

Nasca Desert, Peru | Nasca people

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars

Athens, Greece | Thucydides

Sophocles’ Oedipus the King

Athens, Greece | Sophocles

Myron’s Discobolus (Discus Thrower)

Athens, Greece | Myron

The Parthenon

Athens, Greece | Iktinos, Kallikrates, and Karpion

Bhagavad Gita

India | Ysasa

Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos

Yazıköy, Muğla Province, Turkey | Praxiteles

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or Poetics

Athens, Greece | Aristotle

The Xunzi

China | Xun Kuang (Xunzi)

Agesander, et al’s Laocoön and His Sons

Rome, Italy | Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus

Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture

Rome, Italy | Vitruvius

Virgil’s Aeneid

Rome, Italy | Virgil

Pont du Gard

Nimes, France | maybe Marcus Ulpsanius Agrippa (Augustus' son-in-law)

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Rome, Italy | Ovid

Seneca’s On Tranquility of Mind

Rome, Italy | Seneca

Josephus’ The Jewish War

Roman Empire | events described happened in Jerusalem, Judea (then part of Roman Empire) | Josephus

The Colosseum, Rome

Rome, Italy | commissioned by Emperors Vespasion/Titus

Arch of Titus

Rome, Italy | maybe Rabirius (commissioned by Emperor Domitian)

Juvenal’s Satires

Rome, Italy | Juvenal

Trajan’s Victory Column

Rome, Italy | probably Apollodoros of Damascus

The Pantheon

Rome, Italy | commissioned by Emperors Agrippa/Hadrian

Dhamek Stupa

Uttar Pradesh, India | Various Indian Artists

Star Ushak Rug

Turkey | Ottoman Artist