İRAN BUZ DEPOLARINA GENEL BİR BAKIŞ, BİR GELENEKSEL YÖRESEL MİMARLIK ÖRNEĞİ

An ice-house (or a Yakh-chal in Persian literally meaning “ice pit”, Yakh meaning ice and Chal meaning pit) is a reservoir to store and preserve ice. It was a method which Iranians used in order to preserve ice. It functioned in a similar way as vernacular cisterns: ice was produced in the coldest periods of winter and people would use the preserved ice during long and warm summers. Considering that the climate of a great portion of Iran is hot-arid, summers in these regions are usually long and the air temperature during the day, even in the shade, is unbearable. Therefore, having beverages and ice cream would be a blessing in such weather conditions. Furthermore, it was also essential to keep meat, dairy products and other food stuff fresh and healthy during the hot summer days. As far as we can recognize today, Iranian bio-climatic architecture has provided the needs and essentials of Iranian people. For instance, in temperatures around forty degree Celsius in cities like Kerman or Shiraz or other cities in the hot-arid zone, cold water was always available for people. In other words, Iran’s traditional or indigenous architecture fulfilled the suitable indoor climatic condition and comfort for its occupants/inhabitants in all seasons. Travelers have recorded some notable points about these kind of buildings. Persians’ common use of ice and snow for cooling drinks and food was reported by John Fryer in the late seventeenth century: “They mightily covet cool things to the Palate. Wherefore they mix snow, or dissolve ice in their Water, Wine or Sherbets,” he wrote (and of Isfahan) “. . . the Poor, have they but a Penny in the World, the one half will go for Bread, and dried Grapes, and the other for Snow and Tobacco ...” (Fryer, 1672) Outside Shiraz he saw that ice was stored in “Repositories” which he tantalizingly describes only as “fine buildings” but it seems likely that they were similar to the huge domed structures still to be seen in some parts of Iran. Only a few survived, but most as disintegrating ruins, although they were in common use around fifty years ago (Beazley, 1977). In addition Sir Jean Chardin, the French traveler, simply has explained the application of ice repositories in Isfahan in his itinerary: “People dig a big pitfall and to the north of it, they make square ponds with a depth of around 40 to 50 cm. At nights they fill them with water and in mornings when water is completely frozen, they break the ice into pieces and store them in the pitfall. They chop the ice into smaller pieces because the more chopped, the better it would freeze. They splash water with sprinklers on the pieces of ice at sunset so that the pieces of ice can stick to each other. After at least eight days of continuous work in the same process, Chunks of ice with a thickness of 1.5 to 2m are produced. That night neighbors gather to celebrate. Sitting around the ice pits, they play different musical instruments to have more fun. They descend onto the pits, break the ice into pieces and sprinkler water on them to make them stick better. …”(Chardin, 1677) This was the procedure through which an ice house would be filled with ice.