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Ancient Iran had air conditioning (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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[-] Jilanico@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

I've read that these wind catchers were used to keep ice frozen in ice pits during summer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l

Fun fact: Ancient Persia had ice cream like desserts enjoyed year round.

[-] DarthBueller@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Amazing - I had no idea that anyone was making ice in the desert in BCE times. The wikipedia article seems to indicate that they did a lot of storing of ice in the Yakhchal structures - but it is confusing as to how they made it. It seems like they either gathered the ice from the mountains, or made it in outdoor shaded "ice pools" that were situated next to the Yakhchal. Surely the ice required winter desert temps to form? Otherwise how would the thermal mass of the ground ever get cool enough to allow ice to form, even with the magic of physics? The permanent shading helps, but year round-ice making surely wasn't a thing, was it?

[-] Jilanico@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Seems like the ice pools were used for year round ice making at night. See the section on "Nocturnal ice making in early India and Iran": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling