India's Forgotten Stepwells.

[Frances]

There are some more images that I wish to post a bit later on.
Victoria Lautman has done all the field work and research, it's thanks to her that they are brought to people's attention so they may not be lost forever, I bet there are many still buried, the tourist ones will not be lost though.
Frances.

[Frances]

Takht Baoli, Narnaul.



Takht Baoli, Narnaul.

Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html

By Victoria S. Lautman.

[Frances]

Ganga Vav, Vadhaven.

Depleted water-tables from unregulated pumping have caused many of the wells to dry up, and when water is present, it’s generally afloat with garbage or grown over with plant-life from lack of attention, even in currently-active temple wells.



Gandhaki Ki Baoli, Delhi.

Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html

By Victoria S. Lautman.

[Frances]

L

Bhamaria Vav, Mehmedabad.



Anonymous Baoli (possibly Nagphuria ke Baoli, Narnaul).



Madha Vav, Vadhavan




Helical Vav, Champaner.

Source:- http://www.victorialautman.com/india.html

By Victoria S. Lautman.

[Frances]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xDUa30jn0s


India's disappearing Stepwells.

Short Video 6:00

[Frances]

Source:- http://whenonearth.net/walk-the-3500...f-chand-baori/

Link to the full article & web site where more images can be found.

Chand Baori: India’s Sublime Ancient Stepwell

If M.C. Escher ever designed stepwells in India 1000 years before he was born, the Chand Baori was probably his design. Located in the village of Abhaneri near Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan,

Chand Baori is the one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India. Chand Baori was commissioned by King Chanda in the 9th century to give the local population easy access to clean ground water at the bottom of the well. Because the steps of the well made it possible for regular villagers to descend down to fetch water, Chand Baori became a popular gathering place, especially during periods of hot weather when the temperature at the bottom of the well would be several degrees cooler than at surface.

The well’s 3,500 narrow steps descend down 12 stories in a dizzying pattern that would give even Felix Baumgartner a feeling of vertigo (okay, so we exaggerate). Chand Baori is no longer an active well and is maintained by the Archeological Survey of India. The algae-covered green water at the bottom of the well does not exactly invoke feelings of refreshment, but certainly adds an otherworldy element to this already mystical structure.



Building stepwells has been a necessity under northern India’s hot summers. The earliest were made around 550 AD, but famous ones like Chand Baori were made during medieval times. And from those times, over 3,000 stepwells were built in India’s two northern states.

But nowadays, don’t expect to still see thousands of them for some have gone dry, old, filled with trash and abandoned; unlike the preserved ancient stepwells like Chand Baori, Agrasen Ki Baoli, Rani Ki Ji Baori, and Adalaj Vav.

Chand Baori isn’t only visited by the locals before just to get clean water for drinking and cooking. Some even had stayed here to bathe, meditate and pray because for Hindus, water is sacred and it represents the boundary between heaven and Earth.

And didn’t you know that this not-so-popular site was actually featured in Hollywood films like “The Fall” (2006) and “The Dark Knight Rises” (Batman, 2012)?

If you plan on going to Jaipur and head to Taj Mahal right after, get this chance right away to get off route and stop over Chand Baori which you can find through the ruined Harshad Mata temple right beside it. Going there could take you for 2 hours from Jaipur by cab, or longer especially if your driver isn’t familiar with the place. Chand Baori isn’t a popular tourist spot and even the locals may not instruct you the precise way to the stepwell, so better be sure you have enough time or better join tours that include the surprising Chand Baori.

It’s best to visit the village and stepwell from October to March. Be sure that you have packed food and water for there aren’t any facilities around the area.
Frances.

[Frances]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGO3ySQ13o


Rani Ni Vav, Patan Gujarat, India.

Recent UNESCO's World Heritage Site. Queens Stepwell.

Short video 2:31.
Frances.

[pabranno]

Frances,
Thank you so much for the time and effort you take to post these threads. Absolutely fascinating, and you clearly go to great lengths to provide details and beautiful images. I found the French revolution thread profound and thought provoking. I appreciate you very much.

Pamela

[bsbray]

There are some ancient structures built over top of natural springs in Great Britain too, and probably a lot of other places, but I have never seen any this impressive. Some of these, like the one at Chand Baori, pretty well leave me speechless. Ancient Rome would have been jealous. This was not a primitive culture.

[Frances]

Nahargarh Fort Step Well. Jaipur, Rajasthan.

Source:- https://www.quora.com/Where-are-some...itecture-works

By Abhilash Padhi.

Welcome to the neglected step-wells of India:
Rudimentary step-wells first appeared in India between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D, born of necessity in a capricious climate zone. It was essential to guarantee a year-round water-supply for drinking, bathing, irrigation and washing, particularly in the arid states of Gujarat (where they’re called vavs) and Rajasthan (where they’re baoli, baori, or bawdi), where the water table could be inconveniently buried ten-stories or more underground. Over the centuries, step-well construction evolved so that by the 11th century they were astoundingly complex feats of engineering, architecture, and art, which encompassed the religion too, making those wells sacred, and signified an inverted Hindu temple. Overall, a beautiful example of fractals in architecture.
Frances.

[Frances]

Hello Pamela, thank you very much for your kind words. I'm glad you find the posts interesting. I tried to inject some heart and compassion into The French Revoloution Thread, due to the collection of very painful stories, so I'm happy you saw that.
Frances.

Hello bsbray, I might try to find the time in the near future to explore on the Internet those ancient structures in the U.K.
Thank you Frances.

[Dreamtimer]

These are stunning.

[bsbray]

The ones in the UK are nowhere near this size from what I've seen. They're just old bath houses attributed to Romans, over springs that are even conventionally considered to have been sacred to the pagan Celts and other cultures in the area long before the Romans arrived. It's just with the advent of chronology revisionists and work such as Syvie that we have to reconsider who actually built these bath houses and if the conventional narrative of them being built by invading Romans is really that accurate.

[Windancer]

Most are pretty cool looking with articulate architecture too...wow, never knew these existed. Thanks!

[Frances]

(Image: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London)

Source:- https://www.newscientist.com/article...t-indian-well/

Pana Meena, Amber, Rajasthan.

ESCHER might have gawped. But this labyrinthine nest of stairs is no impossible construction. Between AD 600 and 1850, more than 3000 step wells were dug, by hand, in the Indian provinces of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Many of them had intricate staircase designs, peppered with shrines and balconies on which to linger in the afternoon heat.

They reach deep underground and provided insurance against the region’s fluctuating water supply. The stairs guided local people – women, mostly – down to the water that seeps in from nearby aquifers. During the rainy season, the wells fill up, but in the dry season, you would have to lug containers up and down the entire well. This particular well, Panna Meena ka Kund near Amber Fort in Rajasthan, has eight storeys. According to local tradition, you must use different sets of stairs to climb down and climb out.

The photograph was taken by Edward Burtynsky for his latest exhibition, Water, which opens at Flowers Gallery in London on 16 October. “I wanted to find ways to make compelling photographs about the human systems employed to redirect and control water,” he writes in the accompanying book. His research took him around the globe, from the fish farms and giant dams of China to Iceland’s glaciers and the salt flats of Mexico.

Burtynsky found it a challenge to gain enough height to capture the enormous scale of water resources and the structures we build to tap them, and had to resort to drones, aerial lifts and helicopters. He took this picture using a 15-metre pneumatic mast, with his remotely controlled camera mounted on the top.
Frances.