Dorasamudra

Capital city of the Hoysala dynasty, who
ruled the region in southern part of the
state of Karnataka from the eleventh to
the thirteenth centuries. Today
Dorasamudra is known by the name of
Halebid and is a village about sixty miles
north and west of the city of Mysore.
Although largely uninhabited, the site is
known for a magnificent collection of
temples, in particular the Hoysaleshvar
Temple, dedicated to the god Shiva in
his form as Lord of the Hoysalas. The
Hoysala temples were built out of a particular type of stone—variously
described as chlorite schist, steatite, or
soapstone—that was quite soft when
newly quarried, but gradually hardened
with exposure to air. This initial malleability made the stone easy to carve,
and facilitated the lush detail that characterizes these temples.
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Doha