6 January 2021
The desert dips below freezing on winter nights but if you want ice in the summer, how do you get it? This is a story of human innovation using natural processes.
In the 17th century BCE the Persians (Iranians) figured out how to make ice in the desert and store it through long hot summers. They used this method for 3,600+ years until electric refrigeration replaced it in the 20th century.
Though water is scarce in Iran, the method works well because the air is so dry. The process requires many steps: deliver water, make ice, store ice and keep it cool.
Deliver water to the ice-making location: The Persians built underground water channels called qanats to deliver water from uphill wells to the downhill population. Water in the qanat does not evaporate in the sun and stays cooler because it’s underground.
Make ice: To make ice the Persians built plaza-like ponds, shaded by a high wall, where the shallow water froze on winter nights. Collecting the ice before sunrise, they stored it in the ice house (dome in the background). Here are two photos of the same ice plaza no longer in use. People give it a sense of scale.
Store the ice: The ice house, called a yakhchal, stored ice underground, where conditions are naturally cooler, and protected it with an insulated dome. The hole at the top of the dome allowed hot air to escape.
Keep the ice cool: The ice was kept cool using natural ventilation to draw in cold air and remove hot air. Windcatcher towers in some towns were quite ornate.
Here’s a video that puts it all together.
Very cool!
(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
This is pretty mind blowing. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks. That was the best explanation I have found. Other sites just show the yakhchal dome and tell you its physics. Magic with no explanation.
Air flow over water underground (qanat) makes perfect sense along with insulation in the yakhchal and winter/night freezing and gathering of ice.
My search was how to build it but I’m not finding that in my search. Sounds cool but how do I do and what materials do I need? Or is it impossible to dig deep enough in Arizona to do it?
It is the material you use, clay bricks, shade and moisture help to make it cool
A qanat is miles in length. These were public works, or the possesions of soverigns and aristocracy. You might be misunderstanding the scale of property required, not to mention water and land rights, needed to make this work.
In The Bronx, N.Y. City, my grandparents used an “ice box” … man delivered one block of ice, weekly, carrying it on his shoulder