Symbols of Hydraulic Engineering in Iran

Archeological Perspective

By: Dr. Ghada Abdel Moniem el Gemaiey

Assistant professor, faculty of archeology, Cairo University This paper aims to clarify the role of Hydraulic engineering in Iran as a tool of water management, legislation, socio-culture change, by studying hydraulic engineering unites and compounds. Iran is located in an arid, semi-arid region. Due to the lack of water sources; like rivers and streams on it, find new ways by creating new building to fulfill people demands through water facility under and above the earth. By this paper academic and nonacademic readers will be recognize the water buildings by referring to the most famous ways of hydraulic system and unites monuments in Iran, which also play a big role in water management, water law system, and climate change. Most influential buildings spread in Iran to water the land and the people, at the same time working as reservoir are: , Badger, Yakh Jal and Ab Anbar.

ResearchU problematic: UDue to climate change, shortage of water and the pollution effect directly the water source under and above the surface of the land which could destroy the environment, thus, culture heritage and old monument can give us a glance to be able to mange water and preserve it, by revival those building and learn from them; not just preserve it. Hence, this paper will explain and clarify the role of water buildings in Iran by studying its structure and architecture which could help in water management, contribute of agriculture system, legislation, climate change and socio-cultural change.

ResearchU Objectives: UBy studying the architecture of Qanat, Ab Anbar, Yakh Jal and badger we will be able to know its components, work system, distribution, if there is a relation between those unites together or not. Finally, can we use and develop them for the benefit of us and the coming generation, or not?

ResearchU method: WillU follow the historical, archeological research method by description and analysis unites and elements which formed every building, Also the study aims to pursue the distribution of water buildings and their relation, and follow up the development of it at the time of its building until now, also, sustainability and if it's under use now or just the government preserve it as a monument or culture heritage. Alongside the study will refer to the role of socio-culture and legislation to ensure continuity. Therefore, the study will refer to the urban architectural to monitor the distribution of the buildings around the country as possible, and the reason of chosen location. Keywords: sustainable architecture- Water- Hydraulic -Iran-Qanat- Badger- Yakh Jal- Ab Anbar.

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UIntroduction:- "No doubt Persian garden represent the paradise; called the paradise of all paradise" [1] one of most effective reason was knowing Qanat as a tool of irrigation. It's clear to all of us the bad effect of climate change on our planet, which could cost us our lives, one of its effects is lack of water. Thus we need to find new ways to reserve water and reduce evaporation which will lead us to dig in the past to find all the answers in our culture heritage. Many countries all over the worlds have an arid or semi arid climate and they suffer from the lack of water, so they create ways to keep water which could come through rain flaw, stream, river flood, groundwater, moisture air and snow, to use and distribute all over the country, what we need now to reuse those buildings again cause the new technology ruin our planet, many countries now use the old hydraulic engineering like hydraulic system in Iran and Qantas project ( activity report,vol.5, 2017), Morocco and Qana project, Algeria and USTO& SUD TIMMI project, Egypt and CULTNAT project, Palestine and VIA MARIS project, Jordan and PNT project, Syria and IPOGEA project, Greece and NAGREF project, Italy and IPOGEA project (Shaduf report, 2007, p.1]. Qanat system played a big role in local economy and social life to build and develop their own needs of water. Many projects in Iran aims for promote research and development to restore the and the other traditional historic hydraulic structure for sustainable development. The system of Qanat has underling many technological, social, moral, economical and legal principles that have formed an important an important part of Iranian culture.

HydraulicU engineering unites in Iran:

1- Qanats : 1.1- Definition: one of the easiest ways to define Qanat by referring to it as a horizontal underground tunnel across tens of kilometers has many perpendicular tunnels "shafts" along its length; from surface to underground which used for digging the Qanat and ventilation it, beside using it for sustainable and preserve the Qanat (Fig.1) (Pic.1).the longest Qanat is at Gonabad in north eastern Iran, where a Qanat extends for over 70 km in length, and transport water from a mother well sunk to a depth of 400 m (Manuel, Lightfoot, Fattahi, 2017, p.6). the majority of Qanats are in smaller scale , most are roughly 5-10 km in length (Yazdi, Khaneiki, 2012, pp.169- 170) In 2014 there have existed some 37,000 active Qanats running all over Iran, discharging about 7 million cubic meters ground water a year (Ashghar & Khaneiki, 2017, p. 1). It's quite obvious that Qanat used for irrigation purpose and some of Qanat has very quality water used for water people with no charge, some Qanat stakeholders believe that the Qanat would continue flowing just as long as people would be allowed to collect drinking water free of charge, so they left one third of its water goes to drinking instead of being sold by its owner for agriculture.

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1.2- Materials: the construction material used for water's buildings is always tough, used a special mortar called Sarooj made of sand, clay, egg whites, lime' goat hair and ash in specific proportions ( el Gemaiey, Ghada, 2014,p.60)

1.3- Qanat constriction: Qanat gallery runs through different type of geological formation from bed rock to surface. Some village built upon Qanat like Khalilabad village; which there is no evidence for this village existence before Qanat, which refer strongly to the role of Qanat in inhabitant some arid area.

Fig 1: schematic vertical cross section of Qanat construction (From water history website)

Most important city in Iran gave much attention to Qanats is [2] and province with the entire village around it. So we can see that most important Qanat located in Yazd like Shahik Qanat is running near the town of Ghaen, Pakam Qanat which situated in Bam city, Kerman province, this Qanat consider as Mirab due to the rate of water flow which increase more than 200 hundred liters per second.

Pic 1: the entrance to Qanat, close to Meybod village

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1.4- Unites:

MotherU well:U dig deep into the water table, the diameter of mother well is usually around 1m. Qanat channel: " gallery or tunnel" excavated by hand, and its only large enough to fit one person who dig it; the size of the tunnel or Qanat channel is depend on the depth of water table and the slope of the ground surface; Qanat channel could extant more than 100km. the Qanat slopes down from the mother well to the outlet at a field or village. In every gallery there is many Payab according to its length (Pic. 2).

Pic.2: Qanat entrance and Qanat gallery.

PayabU :U some steps going down for access to sloping gallery connecting the ground surface to the Qanat gallery, this gallery has many steps; the deeper the Qanat the longer the Payab (Pic.3). The slope of the Payab is calculated so that the end of gallery meets the bottom of one of the Qanat's shaft wells. The Payab was perpendicular to the direction of the Qanat gallery in order to prevent the probable collapse of the gallery. Some Payabs were built for public use, near , roads and caravansaries, but in some dry cities in central parts of Iran, many families had a private Payab; the designers divided the Qanat's main branch into several side branches inside the city. The houses neighboring the side branches had privet Payab. Also there was a public Payab in each part of the town. (Yazdi. Khaneiki, 2010, pp. 46-47). The Payab construction wasn’t complicated and the main part was like a room, which had a square or an octagonal plan with following unites: pool, terrace for people to sit or to put food storage.

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Pic 3: Payab and water reservoir

BooU kan:U as all of the Qanat excavate outside villages and cities in the middle of the desert, workers need places to accommodate near to the Qanat or inside the gallery, so they built this kind of chamber to sleep or rest in it (Pic.4, 5). So it could be a temporary houses or chambers for the workers. Its roof was at the same level as the ground surface; workers enter it by staircase. Depending on the number of the workers several niches were digging into walls, 0.5m. Above the floor, almost every 3km. along the gallery a new Bookan was digging.

ShaftsU :U vertical channel linked surface to the underground gallery, used for removing excavated materials, and providing ventilation and access for repairing and maintenance activities.

MazharU "Qanat outlet":U it’s the place where people obtain water and it's located mostly in the upstream; Mazhar is very important point where all the water ends to it. Once the Mazhar full of water, physical action should be taken and transfer water from it to the reservoir.

Pic 4: Qanat’s unites "Bookan"

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WaterU mills: U one of the most impressive ancient hydraulic structure causes of its simplicity and effectiveness, consist of an octagonal room with a slide corridor too large to expand camels and donkeys to enter the room while they are loaded with crops (Pic.4). The watermills were powered by Qanat, it were connected to water source by canals, the mill shafts is semi conical in shape and its diameter reduces from top to the bottom. These shafts can be plugged by a wooden device which is accessible through a narrow gallery from inside the mill.

Pic 5: Qanat’s unites Paybe, watermill”

WaterU reservoir:U it's an underground structure consist of rooms linked to the mother well, the entrance on the surface lead by a vaulting slide corridor with many wide steps to the main room which use by public for drinking, washing, etc. all of water reservoir had a storage tank whose dimensions depend on the amount of Qanat discharge and the demand for water. The storage tank is of variable dimension and its plan can be square, octagonal or a circle, the water storage tank's roof can be flat, but almost be dome shaped or vaulted; the wind tower is one of the tradition structures, the number of badger in water reservoir ranges from 1 to 6. For example Taft reservoir, dated 981 AH. By Shah Ali Sultan Hussein, the reservoir was recharge once in a year, the unique quality of the reservoir is its depth that varies from 16 and 17m. (ICQHS, 2015, p.17)

PaU Shir:U it’s the area of tap water, it constructed at the same level as the bottom of the water storage tank, or a little lower; it was a drain at the bottom of the Pa Shir to discharge the waste water to a canal named " rah ab" and this water was then directed to a nearby Qanat (Yazdi, Khaneiki. 2010, p.49)

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Pic 6, one of the most impressive photo represent the Qanat end, Lourstan, By Ehsan Mohammadi

1.5- Usage and examples: to water people and land, goes from underground to the field through gallery and many shafts to mother well. Sadeqabad Qanat: located in Ebrahimabad of Mehriz, it has been the source of water and agriculture for more than 300 years, there is a 40km distance from this Qanat to the mother well which has depth of 110 m. more than 800 shafts wells have been dug for this Qanat [3] (ICQHS,2015, p.10) Hasanabad Moshir Qanat: this Qanat is about 5km long, max discharge is 400lit/sec. [4] (ICQHS, 2015, p.11) Mohamedabad Qanat: it has 3 subsidiary branches called, Ghotbaki, Labidi and Mehrizi as well as a main canal known as Ali Abbadi. The depth of the mother well for Ghotbaki branch about 53m. with about 10-12lit/sec., Labidi about 54m depth with 15-20lit/sec., Mehrizi about 78m.depth with 15- 20lit/sec. the Ali Abadi branch which is the main one has a mother well of 22m.with 10-25lit/sec. the Qanat has 1000 shafts sand and 150-200 beneficiaries [5] (ICQHS, 2015, p.13). Mun Qanat, Ardestan: one of the most wondrous Qanat in the world, it consist of 2 stories, it has two main tunnels above each other with 3m difference in elevation, this Qanat has two mother wells (Fig.2).

Fig 2: Mun Qanat, two layers Qanat 7

2- Badger ( wind catcher) A traditional structure used for passive air for ventilation and conditioning of the buildings in general and water building in specific. Wind catcher is like a chimney whose ends is in the grounds and the top is over the ceiling, It consist of square plan like a tower, has four open sides to catch air from all over the sides. Some reservoir or cistern has two wind catchers while the other have four in distribute in the corner of the building, there is no rules for distributed the Badger unless the wind direction is totally different and the badger is less than four ( Pic.6).

Pic 6: Ab Anbar Yazd

3- Yakh Jal (cool storage room)

Yakh Jal is the building were used to store ice, Ice house had been active in two seasons, winters to store ice and summer to consume it, the main chamber is located underground. Alongside each icehouse is a long shallow channel, about 100*10m and 40-50cm deep, which entirely shaded by a wall, the channel is lined with tiles to make it watertight (Aryan, Ehsan, 2009, p.7) Its known that Iranian knows how to make ice cream long time ago due to Yakh Jal; one of the traveler said when he talk about Isfahnieen people "..The poor, have they but the penny in the world, the one half will go for bread and dried grapes, and the other for snow and tobacco..."(Fryer,J, 1963, p.149).Yahk Jal located in desert not very far away from mountain, Qanat and caravansary route to serve merchant and wealthy people in cities also like in Yazd and Kerman . One of the only remain ice house of the region is situated in Meybod, 50km. north of Yazd (Fig3, Pic.7), it consist of circular plan covers by lofty dome, in the center of the room there is an ice pool with many stairs lead to the bottom. The capacity of the ice pool was about 800 square meters with half meter depth, the walls are 2m thick and 8m.tall, the wall is constructed of rammed earth and mud bricks the axial plane of the dome is about 300 square meters

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with an approx. height of 15m.the ditch of the ice house is 13m of diameter with 6m.depth and located below the dome, thickness of the wall between 2.4m on the top gradually to 25cm in the bottom of the wall (ICQHS, 2015, P.22). Yakh Jal keep blocks from ice which have been taken from mountain, on the other hand it could work by poured water during winter nights in the long shallow channel to the north of the shade walls, water will easily freeze due to the low temperature, before sunrises the ice crashed and moved to the deep pool with the vast dome.

Fig 3, Pic 7: Yahk Jal Meybod, Yazd

4- Ab Anbar "cistern": John Fryer said when he was talking about sources of water in Iran" the other is immediately from the heavens, reserved in cisterns built by the charity of well disposed persons; out of which the poor, the covetous and the slaves, flocks and herds too, are often supplied when a plentiful rain has made them overflow" (Fryer, 1963, p.149). the location of Ab Anbar is always chosen after careful examination of the ground, this function of cisterns having first been dismissed since there seemed to be no other source of water supply, low banks of earth and stone (often less than meter high) contain the water, the water flows in through a hole at ground level and is taken out as needed by bucket through a small door, the cistern is covered by dome or vault depending on its shape. (Kazemi, Shirvani, 2011, vol.4, No.1, p. 267) Ab Anbar needs ventilation and fresh air to keep water fresh and drinkable so most of the time attached with Badger "wind catcher", access to collect water was by a staircase going deep down to the lowest level of cistern, the storage 3 capacities of it vary from 300 to 3000mP PR R( Sanizadeh, 2008, p. 29) the walls of

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the storage were often 2m thick, and especially bricks backed for Ab Anbar and were called Ajor Ab Anbari, some of cistern so big that they would be built underneath caravansaries or mosques or separated such as Ab Anbar in Takht Folad in .

5- Conclusion:- Vernacular buildings are the most characterize buildings in Iran, like wind catcher, wind mills, hunting lodge, pigeon towers.etc. Some of them are unique and specific to Persian civilization and the other are existed and known. Traditional buildings techniques reflect the needs of society adopt with the climate and nature; they are result of centuries of practice and development Some villages appear due to digging Qanat in it, and some other disappear cause disoriented or lack of sustainability.

Notes: [1] the earliest evidence of Persian garden was recorded in 600 B.C. at the palace area in Pasargadae ,the garden was based on the Zoroastrian division of the universe into four parts, four seasons or four elements; water ,wind, soil, fire. (Farahani, Motamed, Jamei, 2016, pp.2-3) [2] The province of Yazd is located in the central plateau of Iran with an area of 131,551 square kilometers, it has 10 cities, 21 towns, 19 sections and 51 villages, and this province is bordered by the largest desert of Iran which is also one of the driest and largest of the world. (ICQHS, 2015, p.4) [3] The founder of the Qanat is Mohamed Sadegh Tajer Tehrani who devoted this Qanat to the public (ICQHS, 2015, P.10) [4] It is said about 700 years ago, two righteous persons named Hassan and Hussein shah managed to dig a Qanat with 17 side branches at the base of Shirkooh maintain but none of the branches ended up in a good discharge, so they vowed to donate one fifth of the water to needed people if the Qanat bring large quantity of water, their wish came true and one of the branches called Kooh Sorkhi hit a big source of water resulting in a discharge of 700lit/sec. (ICQHS, 2015, P.11) [5] The founder is Mohammad Ali Beik, to irrigate Mehriz 400 years ago (ICQHS, 2015, P.13) References: - Fryer, J. (1963), a new account for the east indies and Persia being nine years travels 1672-1681, Vol.3, . - Hassan, Fekry & others (2007), Traditional water technologies, Belgium.

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- SSanizadeh, Shahram (2008), Novel hydraulic structures and water management in Iran, a historical perspective, Mediterranean, A 83. - Yazdi, Ali. Khaneiki, Majid (2010), Veins of desert, A review on the technique of Qanat/ Falaj/Karez, Tehran - Aryan, Amirkhani. Hanie, Okhovat. Reza Pourjafar. Ehsan, Zamani. (2009), historical ice houses: remarkable example of Iranian culture heritage, Tehran. - Kazemi, Amir. Shirvani, Amir. (2011), an overview of some vernacular techniques in Iranian sustainable architecture in reference to cisterns and ice houses, journal of sustainable development, vol.4, No.1., Canada. - Yazdi, Semsar and Khaneiki, Labbaf (2012), Qanat in its cradle, situation of Qanat in the world. International center on Qanats and historical hydraulic structures, Yazd. - El Gemaiey, Ghada (2014), the role of water in Isfahan; a study of samples of bridges and dams on Zayande Rud, EJARS, Sohag, pp.55-63 - International center on Qanats and historic hydraulic structures (2015), ancient historic hydraulic structures of Yazd, ICQHS, Yazd. - Farahani, Leila. Motamed, Bahareh. Jamei, Elmira (2016), Persian gardens: meanings, Symbolism, and design, official journal of the international association for land scope ecology. - Ashgar, Ali. Khaneik, Majid (2017), Qanat knowledge construction and maintains, spring. - International center on Qanats & hydraulic structures (2017), Vol.5, Yazd. - Manuel, Mark. Lightfoot, Dale. Fattahi, Morteza (2017), the sustainability of ancient water control techniques in Iran: an overview, spring

- Water History Website, http://www.waterhistory.orgU U

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