{"id":2981,"date":"2015-09-01T00:37:31","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/?p=2981"},"modified":"2015-09-01T00:37:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:37:31","slug":"the-rapidly-disappearing-stepwells-of-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/01\/the-rapidly-disappearing-stepwells-of-india\/","title":{"rendered":"The rapidly disappearing stepwells of India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/2015\/08\/stepwell-architecture\/?utm_source=feedly&amp;utm_medium=webfeeds\">These are just incredible<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Construction of stepwells involved not just the sinking of a typical deep cylinder from which water could be hauled, but the careful placement of an adjacent, stone-lined \u201ctrench\u201d that, once a long staircase and side ledges were embedded, allowed access to the ever-fluctuating water level which flowed through an opening in the well cylinder. In dry seasons, every step\u2014which could number over a hundred\u2014had to be negotiated to reach the bottom story. But during rainy seasons, a parallel function kicked in and the trench transformed into a large cistern, filling to capacity and submerging the steps sometimes to the surface. This ingenious system for water preservation continued for a millennium.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"ZMpDNXx\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"625\" height=\"816\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2982 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_55e4f31053e5e.png?resize=625%2C816&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_55e4f31053e5e.png?w=1000&amp;ssl=1 1000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_55e4f31053e5e.png?resize=230%2C300&amp;ssl=1 230w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_55e4f31053e5e.png?resize=785%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 785w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/img_55e4f31053e5e.png?resize=624%2C814&amp;ssl=1 624w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These are just incredible. &#8220;Construction of stepwells involved not just the sinking of a typical deep cylinder from which water could be hauled, but the careful placement of an adjacent, stone-lined \u201ctrench\u201d that, once a long staircase and side ledges were embedded, allowed access to the ever-fluctuating water level which flowed through an opening in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfIY-M5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2983,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions\/2983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}