Great Zimbabwe was a stone city near Masvingo in south-eastern Zimbabwe, settled from around AD 1000 and the capital of a kingdom from the 13th century. Its Great Enclosure has dry stone walls about 11 metres high built without mortar, and it is the largest stone structure in precolonial southern Africa. Construction ran from the 11th to the 15th century, and the city was abandoned in the 16th or 17th century. Its builders were ancestors of the Shona people. Colonial-era authorities pressured archaeologists to deny an African origin, and that view did not become scholarly consensus until the 1950s.

Israeli reports also say the cabinet directed the military to prepare for a possible new attack on Iran.

Angkor, near Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia between roughly the 9th and 15th centuries. At its height the city spread across about 3,000 square kilometres, making it the largest pre-industrial city on Earth by area. Its growth depended on water: huge reservoirs called barays, along with canals and embankments, stored monsoon rain and carried it to rice fields. That system let farmers harvest more than once a year and fed a very large population through the dry season. The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th century, is the best-known monument and still stands at the heart of the park.