In 1590 the Frankfurt engraver Theodor de Bry published engravings after watercolours by John White, made during Walter Raleigh's English colony on Roanoke Island. They illustrated Thomas Harriot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, which described the local peoples and their tattoos and body markings. The book's final section turned the lens back on Britain, showing the ancient Picts in the same way to argue that the British had once been as savage as the Virginians. The colony itself failed. When White returned from England in 1590 he found the settlement deserted, with 112 of 121 colonists gone. The only clue was the word CROATOAN carved into a post, perhaps referring to a nearby island. White never found his family, and the fate of the colonists remains unresolved. Their disappearance is known as the Lost Colony.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.