Although the Calukyas did introduce freestanding temples, most of their patronage extended to rock-cut monuments.
The Pallavas also began with rock-cut temples, as at Mahabalipur, but, when they took to freestanding temples, they produced the most-impressive examples of their time.
Several freestanding temples of the Chalukya dynasty, located about 8 miles (13 km) east-northeast of Badami at Pattadakal, collectively were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.
Later in the summer, he started work for Unesco on the project of saving the Nubian monuments on the Upper Nile from being drowned -16 freestanding temples, built in the days of the Pharaohs, and 7 hewn out of cliffs.
One of the oldest freestanding stone temples in the subcontinent has been excavated at Taxila, near Rawalpindi, Pak.
Earlier temples were made of wood, but freestanding stone and brick temples soon appeared in many parts of India.
Whereas in earlier times the sanctuary lay at the very back of the building, in the Late and Ptolemaic periods it became a freestanding building inside the temple, further insulated from the outside world by the surrounding corridors and rooms.
Most Hindu temples are freestanding.
The more public parts of temples often incorporated small places for prayer, from doorways to freestanding chapels near the back of the temple building.
On dry land historical sights range from fortified baroque capital Valletta to mysterious Neolithic fertility temples and the oldest freestanding building on earth at Ggantija.
