Step wells are common throughout India, many of them built by rulers near religious sites. Their basic function was to hold water, filling during the rainy monsoon months and acting as reservoirs through the rest of the year and through India’s hot summers. The Abhaneri Step Well (more properly called the Chand Baori), pictured here, looks like it was designed by Escher, with its cascade of steps and staircases leading all the way down to the bottom, so that as the reservoir dried up one could go down to the lowest levels. It was constructed about 850 CE and has around 3500 steps in total.