India's Forgotten Stepwells | Hacker News Reader

India's Forgotten Stepwells

archdaily.com

295 pointsjuanplusjuan36 comments

Thanks op for the link .. great pictures!

India's historical legacy is absolutely breath taking. From the beautiful palaces in Jaipur, to the ultimate gift of Love in Agra, India's rich heritage tells stories of architectural break throughs, scientific explorations, mathematical discoveries and heart wrenching sagas of love.

I used to live in India in early 1990s and I can't wait to go back and visit this beautiful land of kind and generous people, where Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christians are united by the fabric of 'Jai Hind' and where the whole nation comes to a stand still when a game of cricket is being played...lol

When I look at these architectural gems, I wonder how it might have been when it was busy with life. I am sure these structures served as focal points of communities and unfortunately now lie in absolute ruins of dilapidation and neglect.

Any construction engineers here? How would one go about building something like this? Do you have to dig a hole big enough to build the whole thing in, then re-fill the sides with sand? Is it possible to gradually go deeper, i.e. build a level under an existing level, or do you have to wait for the dry season and then rush to get it completed before the lowest levels are flooded come the next wet season? That seems impossible, given the size of some of these things.

I'm wondering because I'd like to build a wine cellar similar in concept to these things (a spiraling staircase with an entrance from above only), but I want to get some insight into building methods before inviting contractors. (for anyone who like underground structures, see www.spiralcellars.co.uk ).

Not a construction engineer but an architectural historian. Reading between the lines of descriptions of these wells, I'd say they started as a narrow shaft (traditional "well" shape) which was progressively excavated and widened to create the setback steps. I am 90% sure they didn't dig a huge cuboid hole down to the water table, build the structure inside and then backfill.

Yeah some of them look like this (the conical ones), but the huge ones in the pictures with the many stories seem to be 'square' temple-like. I'd imagine that building those pillars with 'decks' between each layers isn't something you can gradually add. Intriguing.

Adalaj, for example, is not as purely vertical as you might think. Google "adalaj section" for drawings.

Ah yes from the cross sections it seems much more viable that they dug the first layer, build the sides, then dug a slightly smaller hole, and so on.

Nice architecture, but man, those things must've been a public health nightmare. Anything that got tracked in on anyone's feet when the water was low would have eventually have wound up in the water supply when the level increased.

Yes, for sure.

However, they predate germ theory by centuries. And as the article notes, the British did consider them "a public health nightmare".

Wells, in general, are a public health nightmare in India. Most of India, except a few states, has heavy quantities of fluoride in the soil.

Ground water is not portable and drinkable because of this. India has suffered numerous episodes of widespread fluorosis. Removal of fluoride to normal levels is one of the major expenditures of water works.

and hence they had strict rules of hygiene then... many passed on as superstition but served a purpose...

The Indian form of greeting of Namaste as opposed to Hand shake is one such practice...

I can't find anything on the Internet to support the theory that greeting by way of Namaste was practiced for hygiene reasons. Do you have any citations for that?

I think galtwho is saying that the people who said Namaste instead of shaking hands were more likely to pass on that greeting as they were less likely to die of a handshake illness. I.e. it came about through natural selection, rather than because someone had decided it was healthier.

On reading galtwho's comment again, I feel you are right. I thought he/she was repeating the post-hoc reasoning that is common in India, where people would take a ritual and assert that ancient Indians knew about scientific ideas that are common knowledge today and based the ritual on those ideas.

Hello all - I'm Victoria, the author of this 3-year old stepwell story, but the one on ThisIsColossal last week went viral and spawned all his miraculous hoopla. Barely anyone even read that article and I couldn't get anything published, anywhere, until last week.

I've been working in total obscurity for years, so please, if anyone wants to know more or I can answer questions, I'm so happy to. Though honestly, there a whole bunch I don't know, and no-one does.

If I'm using your site incorrectly, forgive this poor newb. My crazed-geek-genius-artist-brother frequents it and is impressed by me, finally. Btw if you're interested (since I owe him) here's his most recent Kickstarter campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/780943604/fizzbuzz?ref=...

Thank you so very much for your interest -

I have visited many of the places mentioned in the article. In terms of architecture they are beautiful but now all the places are in bad shape. The government and local population make no interest in saving the history.

They are very beautiful when dry. However, navigating these steps when there is water is not easy -- they get very slippery when the water level goes down but algae is still present in the supposedly drier steps. A cylindrical design where the steps go around the well with sealable openings may provide similar benefit with little maintenance overhead.

They may have been forgotten by tourism, but not by videogame level design.

Monument Valley is a great example of this!

Is that a joke or do you have any examples? Links would be great.

Tomb Raider is something that popped up in my mind looking at some of those pictures. Monument Valley that has already been mentioned too if you like a bit of Escher in your puzzle design.

Looking at the pictures it reminded me of first prince of persia sands of time.

I don't think any games were specifically inspired by step-wells (would be glad to contradicted with examples) but you point out a great place for game devs to draw inspiration from.

OK, so a hole with steps is great when numerous people must walk down to the water level. But keeping junk out, while letting people in, is a hard problem. As historic places, they of course ought to be maintained. But today, deep cisterns with pumps make much more sense. Or maybe better, groundwater recharge, because you get natural filtration.

When I visited one of these in Agra last Fall, I assumed it to be either a bath or an aquarium to keep exotic animals. Some had so many tiny windows and grills, I thought they might be designed to use as laundry places. It's interesting that all of these were simply wells.

How timely! I'm currently visiting India and noticed some stairs to nowhere yesterday. That's most likely what is was :)

I took some friends on a sightseeing tour of the country last Fall - one of the most memorable sights was Chand Baori (Abhaneri), about 2/3 of the way between Agra and Jaipur. The place was absolutely stunning, and it had maybe 3 visitors in the two hours while we were there.

It can only be stopped at if traveling by car, and while it's a tad more treacherous than plane/train, it's the only way I'll travel between the two cities if I have the time. You'll get to experience some amazing scenery along the way, and it cost no more than $100 for the journey in a large A/C car!

Thanks OP! I was at the Adalaj step well in Gujarat couple of months back, Its amazing to see these structure's usefulness to the common people and beautiful carvings. Inside the step well the temperature is very cool like an AC despite the burning ~43 deg Celsius outside.

Que Dark Knight Rises references :)

You are being downvoted to hell, but you have my thanks for pointing that out. According to http://whenonearth.net/walk-the-3500-narrow-steps-of-chand-b... ( amazing pictures) the Chand Baori was used as a shooting location in The Fall, The Dark Knight Rises and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Yeah this is great... In 1700 India had a population ~127 million people. In 1200 it was certainly much Lowe than that. Is the claim that this ancient technology would solve all of India's water problems for 1+ billion people?

No?

I'm pretty sure the article was more about the amazing architecture (see: pictures) and it may help with water retention for small amounts of the population. It's no silver bullet.

Yes, but any amout on water saving before it goes to ocean will help us. I am not seeing any less rain (observation) but definitely the ponds and lakes in villages and city like bangalure has come down to about 1/4th now

Yes absolutely. Chennai used to be called a city of lakes, and now even Pallikaranai[1] is seeing disastrous development.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallikaranai_wetland

Chennai is a classic dead case. That city could have been maintained like London with water ways and road ways. Now they completely forgot about even tap water. Based on Thirukkural[1] if there was one thing that king/ruler should do that would be providing water to citizens free. It is very sad.

[1] http://www.gokulnath.com/thirukuralsections

The old water ways built by British have turned into dumpyards over which poor people have built bridges of wooden planks and they live their. Mismanagement of resources at its finest.

"Indiscriminate dumping of toxic solid waste along the road, discharge of sewage, and construction of buildings, railway stations and a new road to connect Old Mahabhalipuram Road and Pallavaram have shrunk the wetland to a great extent."

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