Monuments are material cultural forms erected in honor of persons or events of historic significance that a collective or social group deems worthy of public esteem. As the representation of values held in common by social groups, monuments are of crucial importance for anthropology. The entry provides a brief history of the invention of the national monument in Western Europe, then critically reflects on terms and distinctions in literature on monuments from an anthropological perspective. The final sections then cover substantive themes in anthropology that intersect with monuments, including memory studies, cultural heritage, power and colonialism, funerary cults, and destruction.