Konark Sun Temple
— a chariot the sea wind has been polishing for eight centuries.
Not only on a wall.
“A temple shaped as a chariot, hauled out of sandstone in the thirteenth century and left at the edge of the Bay of Bengal. Twelve pairs of wheels carved into the plinth, seven horses straining at the prow. The main spire is gone; what remains still reads as motion. The light off the water carries salt and a long, slow erosion that the carvers could not have planned for and somehow accounted for. from the studio
Konark Sun Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Konark Sun Temple stands about 35 kilometres north of Puri on the coast of Odisha, a few kilometres inland from the Bay of Bengal. It was built in the mid-thirteenth century, traditionally dated to around 1250 CE, under the Eastern Ganga king Narasimhadeva I. The complex is conceived as the chariot of the sun-god Surya, with twenty-four carved wheels and seven horses at the plinth. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1984.
The temple is carved from khondalite, chlorite and laterite quarried in the region and hauled to the coast. The main shikhara, said to have risen over 60 metres, collapsed centuries ago; the surviving jagamohana, or audience hall, was sealed with sand in 1903 by the British under John Marshall to keep it from falling. The wheels are reckoned as sundials, each spoke a measure of time. Salt air has rounded every face that the conservators have not stabilised.
The site opens at sunrise and closes at sunset, with an Archaeological Survey of India ticket required for entry. Konark sits about an hour from Puri along the Marine Drive and roughly 65 kilometres from Bhubaneswar's Biju Patnaik airport. The annual Konark Dance Festival, held under the temple's profile each December, draws classical performers from across India. The light is kindest early, before the coastal haze rises and the day's coaches arrive.