This chapter describes raised platforms, burial mounds, and topographic conformation of authority ranking in which elites’ dwellings are at higher elevations. Emperors palaces were often surrounded by vast private plazas, massive walls with high and strong gateways, and often stairs that have to be climbed to reach the palace. These are examples of iconic conformations of authority ranking using elevation, mass, and surface area. In cartography, the status of nations is conformed by their relative sizes and their position on the vertical axis of a map. For thousands of years, rulers have built massive, imposing monuments, including earthen mounds, pyramids, and huge, tall stone monoliths. The chapter concludes by explaining why these conformations of authority ranking cannot be fully explained by theories of costly signals, not by theories of conspicuous consumption of energy.