(CNN)Victoria Lautman's travels sound like
something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Armed with a humble little
point-and-shoot camera ("Well, I'm sliding in horrible pits, I need to be
able to hold it in my teeth") the Chicago-based adventure-journalist travels
across India hunting for ancient, unexplored ruins. Lautman's favorite pastime,
or "obsession" as she calls it, is finding stepwells, large often
cavernous wells in which water may be reached by descending a set of steps.
Dating back as far as AD 600, these incredible architectural feats of design
have been largely forgotten -- until now. Stepwells were traditionally used
throughout India to tap into the country's deep water tables -- and some, like
the Chand Baori (baori, one of the Hindi words for well) in the western state
of Rajasthan, run more than 100 feet into the ground. Oct.6 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/06/architecture/victoria-lautman-wells/index.html
Chand
Baori is a stepwell situated in the village of Abhaneri near Jaipur in the
Indian state of Rajasthan. It consists of 3,500 narrow steps over 13 stories
and extends approximately 100 ft into the ground making it one of the deepest
and largest stepwells in India. The solar eclipse [20vi] of September 13 fell
on the MC at Chand Baori conjunct A1774
Crateris [21vi] and Alkes, alpha Crateris [23vi] in the constellation of the
Crater[1]. Crater, the Cup, is often considered a part of the threefold
constellation; Hydra, Corvus and Crater. It relates to the myth [Ovid's Fasti,
2.243-66] that Apollo sent a Raven (Corvus) to fetch water in the god's cup
(Crater).
As a
constellation, the Crater or the Cup has meagre mythology, but as a symbol it is rich
in meaning. Primarily it stands for a hollow container or vessel that contains
the draught of life that provides nourishment as water in a well.
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