Silvery waters wend around a tumble of boulders as dhobis (low-caste washermen) wash and beat village laundry on the banks of the Tungabhadra River in Vijayanagar, India. The city, in southern India’s Karnataka state, was once the seat of the Vijayanagar Empire, which dominated the south of India from A.D. 1300 to 1500.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, the National Geographic book, Our World’s Heritage, 1986)