Explanation: In Persia and nearby regions, there is a long-lasting architectural tradition of ingeniously constructed icehouses that preserve or even produce ice in hot and arid climates. Slushie, anyone?
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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I can't find it now but weren't these thought to have been patterned after some sort of insect nest for the solar chimney effect or am I thinking of something else?
No clue about whether it was patterned after insect nests (though I definitely see the resemblence), but the wiki article does mention the solar chimney effect, so you may be right!
Most yakhchāls operate like a traditional ice house. The tall, conical shape of the building is to optimize the solar chimney effect, creating a convection current to guide any remaining heat upward and outside through openings at the very top of the building.
As for me, this shit is basically witchcraft. I don't understand temperature beyond 'shade cool, underground cool'. Ancient civilizations doing wild black magic as far as I'm concerned.
Whats even more baffling is sure on the surface as we dig into the ground it gets cooler, but as you get deep it starts getting warm again. Its like a cool middle layer that stays cold while the core is a boiling ball of molten rock and the outside atmosphere traps heat at the surface.
Probably something else, these rely on qanats. It's basically cooled by a massive open face swamp cooler which I guess does use solar energy in a number of ways.
It even kinda looks like a soft serve ice cream blob or something
Or those torpedo bras women used to wear in the 50s(?).