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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?
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?
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.
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.
It even kinda looks like a soft serve ice cream blob or something
Or those torpedo bras women used to wear in the 50s(?).
