In 1888 the Wetherills, two cattle-ranching brothers, stumble upon the Anasazi cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colo.
Australian archaeologists uncover ancient kilns in Thailand used to make ceramics.
Briton Sir Charles Fellows discovers the Xanthian Marbles, important Greek statues outside Greece.
In 1911 explorer Hiram Bingham searches for a lost city of the Incas and discovers Machu Picchu in Peru.
In 1871 German geologist Karl Mauch visits the African city of Great Zimbabwe, whose origins raise controversy.
In the early 1800s, Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt poses as a Moslem and infiltrates the Arab city of Petra.
East India Company officer John Benjamin Seeley leaves Bombay in 1810 and travels 300 miles to explore cave-temples of Ellora.
In 1881 Englishman Alfred Maudsley visits the Mayan city of Tikal, abandoned to the Central American jungle in the 10th century.
Former circus strongman Giovanni Belzoni begins a career as an archaeological excavator in 1815 Egypt.