Rani Ki Vav(Queen’s Stepwell).
Situated in Patan town in Gujarat, the shaft of the well is highly ornamented with intricate carvings. The wall projects the large vertical brackets in pairs, which supported the different galleries of the well. The brackets are arranged in tiers. It has a stepped corridor compartmented at regular intervals with pillared multi-storeyed pavilions. The four pavilions which demarcate the stages along the descent have multiple storeys, two, four, six and seven respectively. It was constructed during the period of the Solanki or Chalukya (11th-12th century). The full size sculptures of the stepwell are taken from the entire Hindu pantheon, for example, Vishnu, Shiva and their various aspects appear with or without their consorts.
There is one factual mistake that the anchor has done while delivering his commentary in the video above. The anchor says that one part of the stepwell is restricted due to structural weakness that happened due to 2001 earthquake. However the fact is that this part was restricted even before the earthquake that happened in 2001.
The stepwell structures are underground structure and are built in a way that any amount of earthquake can’t damage them even slightly. Even after two great earthquakes of 1819 and 2001, Gujarat’s stepwell structures at Adalaj or Patan or even in earthquake prone Kutch and Saurashtra have not received any damage. This because of our great traditional architecture.
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