From the domed ice towers of Yazd to the shaded vaults beneath Mughal palaces, the quest to master heat and preserve cold reveals a continuity of human imagination.
By Matthew A. McIntosh
Public Historian
Brewminate
Introduction
Throughout human history, the quest to control temperature (to preserve perishables, provide comfort, and assert luxury) has driven remarkable technical and architectural solutions. In the premodern world, societies without mechanical refrigeration nonetheless developed ingenious passive systems to produce, store, and moderate cold. Among the most striking of these is the yakhchāl of Persia, a domed, subterranean ice-house structure that, under ideal conditions, could maintain ice through desert summers. In parallel, in the Indian subcontinent (especially under the Mughals), a related but distinct tradition of baraf khana (ice‐houses or cold cellars) emerged, often depending on imported ice, insulation, and architectural adaptation. A comparative study of these systems, Persian and Indian, promises insight into the dynamics of technological transfer, environmental constraint, and the lived experience of climate in premodern Eurasia.
This paper argues that the Persian yakhchāl represents one of the most advanced and sustainable preindustrial cold-storage systems ever built, and that its influence (direct, modified, or aspirational) can be traced in certain Indian contexts. Yet the Indian adaptation never matched the Persian prototype in climatic robustness or architectural ubiquity, in part because of differences in humidity, monsoon regimes, building materials, and political economy. By exploring how these two traditions converged, diverged, and interacted, we gain a window onto the interplay of environment, technology, and courtly culture.
My approach is structurally comparative and historically grounded: I begin by laying out terminological and conceptual foundations, then examine Persian yakhchāls in depth (distribution, design, operation, and cultural role), followed by the evidence for ice‐house techniques in Mughal and later India. A comparative analysis will then highlight both continuities and limits, after which I turn to modern legacy, conservation, and possible lessons for sustainable cooling. Throughout, I rely on architectural, engineering, and textual sources while acknowledging gaps, uncertainties, and the necessity of cautious inference.
A few caveats and methodological remarks are in order. First, many statements about yakhchāls are repeated in secondary popular sources (e.g. that date to 400 BCE), but archaeological or archival confirmation is often lacking. The historiographic challenge is to distinguish well-documented cases from speculative ones. Second, the Indian “baraf khana” tradition is far less documented; it often appears as ephemeral references in Mughal chronicles or traveler accounts, rather than surviving architecture, so reconstruction involves careful cross-disciplinary reading. Third, the climatic, material, and social contexts differ substantially between Persia and India, so any direct transfer must be understood as adaptation, not simple replication
In what follows, “yakhchāl” will refer specifically to the Persian dome-pit ice house (broadly understood, even when hybrid forms occur), and “baraf khana” or “ice house/cold cellar” will refer to Indian uses of ice storage techniques (whether inspired by Persian precedents or local innovation). With those definitions in place, we turn first to foundational concepts and precedents.
Yakhchāl in the Persian/Iranian World
Earliest Evidence and Dating
The question of when the yakhchāl idea first emerged is challenging, because direct textual or archaeological attestations are fragmentary. Some secondary sources repeat a claim that yakhchāls existed as early as 400 BCE, but this date is seldom backed by secure archaeological evidence.1 In fact, many existing structures date to Islamic or medieval periods, though they may rest on older underlying foundations or reflect long continuity of practice.
That said, scholars of traditional Iranian architecture treat yakhchāls as part of a longer tradition of water management, ice storage, and passive cooling in arid climates.2 The general notion of storing ice or snow in pits or insulated chambers under desert summer heat likely has deep roots in indigenous ingenuity. Over time, the more elaborate domed and subterranean form developed in response to environmental, social, and technical pressures.
Because of this uneven evidence, in what follows I distinguish well documented yakhchāl complexes (medieval to early modern) from hypothesized early prototypes. You should be cautious about assuming unbroken technological continuity across many centuries without intermediate proofs.
Spatial Distribution and Typologies
Yakhchāls are concentrated in the hot-arid and cold desert belts of central and eastern Iran (e.g. Yazd, Kerman, Abarkuh, Meybod).3 Their geographical logic is clear: in regions with large diurnal temperature swings, low humidity, and intense summer heat, insulating storage could make ice viable for seasonal use.
Typical yakhchāl complexes consist of three interrelated components:
- An ice-making pool or yakhband, where water is placed (often at night) to freeze or partially freeze;
- A shade wall (or sāyebān) that blocks daytime solar radiation and lateral warmth;
- An underground ice reservoir or storage chamber (the “pit,” chāl) beneath a domed superstructure.4
These parts interact to maximize cooling and minimize heat ingress.5 In some clusters, you find multiple yakhchāls, shared water channels (qanats), and integrated shading or wind-catcher systems.
Typologically, variations include:
- Classic domed pit structure: a conical or parabolic dome over a subterranean chamber, with supporting shade walls and ice pool.
- More modest or partially subterranean forms: some simpler ice houses rely less on dome height and more on insulation and depth.
- Open or uncovered shade-wall + pond systems: in marginal zones, some installations may just use a high shading wall over a shallow freezing pool without heavy domes or deep chambers.
In all these variants, thick walls and insulating mortar are crucial.
Architectural and Engineering Design
Insulation, Walls, and Mortar
One of the most striking features of yakhchāls is the remarkable thickness of their walls, often two meters or more at the base.6 These thick walls serve as thermal mass to retard heat penetration. The mortar used, popularly called sarooj (or sārūj), is a composite mixture (sand, clay, lime, ash, sometimes egg white, goat hair) reputed to be water-impenetrable and thermally resistant.7 Some reconstructions and experimental analyses suggest that this composite provides very low thermal conductivity while sealing the structure against moisture ingress.8
This double role, thermal insulation and moisture resistance, is essential, because any infiltration of warm moisture could degrade stored ice. The dome form also helps: by elevating the hottest internal air above the ice chamber, the design channels heat upward and outward, reducing convection into the storage zone.
Shade Walls, Water Channels, and Ice Pools
A key innovation is the use of shade walls, often oriented east–west, placed near the ice pools so that they cast shadows over the water troughs during daylight hours.9 This shading slows radiative heating of the pool water and reduces losses from sun exposure. In some instances, those walls may be 10 m or higher.10 Water is often drawn from a nearby qanat (an underground water channel), and conducted through narrow channels to the ice-making pool.
During cold nights, the shallow pool may lose heat via radiative cooling (i.e. emit heat to the cold sky) and evaporation, dropping water temperature close to or below freezing. The ice formed is harvested at dawn and moved into storage. In effect, the pool + shade wall system helps pre-chill or freeze water before it enters the insulated chamber.11
Subterranean Pit, Ventilation, and Airflow
The subterranean chamber (pit) sits below ground level, often accessible by stairways. The dome roof, along with vents or a hole at the apex, facilitates the “chimney effect”: warm air rises and is vented upward, while cooler air from the lower level is drawn inward.12 Some have argued that small openings or vents can allow light (so that workers need not carry torches) while limiting warm air infiltration.13 Drainage outlets let meltwater exit or recirculate (sometimes back to qanats). The geometry, depth, and height relationships of the dome and pit are often optimized to maintain the coldest air near the stored ice.
Performance and Modeling
Modern building physics studies (for example by firms like Max Fordham) have attempted to simulate the behavior of yakhchāl systems under desert climatic conditions. One such analysis indicates that with proper design and insulation, the structure can maintain internal temperatures well below ambient during the summer months and slow ice melt.14 These models confirm qualitatively what was long known empirically: that well designed yakhchāls can preserve ice over several months with minimal losses in arid climates.
Of course, actual performance depends on local conditions (nighttime cooling, humidity, wind, insulation integrity, maintenance). Many surviving structures are in partial ruin, complicating precise reconstruction.
Function, Use, and Cultural Role
In their heyday, yakhchāls served multiple functions:
- Ice storage and supply for cooling drinks, desserts (e.g. faloodeh), and perishable foods during summer.
- Food preservation: for meat, dairy, and other perishable commodities in hot months.
- Social and symbolic prestige: owning or maintaining an ice supply was a luxury and status marker in hot, arid regions.
- Economic trade: in regions where demand existed, ice might be traded or transported locally.
Because ice is expensive to produce and maintain, its use was concentrated in elite, courtly, religious, or market centers. The presence of a yakhchāl near a city or caravan stop may have enhanced its standing, especially given the difficulty of the climate.
Some traveler accounts from early modern eras mention “ice repositories” or “fine buildings” storing ice in hot districts, likely referring to or echoing yakhchāls.15 However, exact attribution is often ambiguous.
Decline, Ruin, and Modern Revival
With the advent of mechanical refrigeration (19th–20th centuries), the practical necessity of yakhchāls diminished sharply. Many fell into disuse, decay, or partial collapse. Some were repurposed or abandoned; others were forgotten entirely. In Iran today, only a handful of well preserved ones remain (e.g. in Yazd, Kerman, Meybod), though many exist in ruinous state.
In recent years, the yakhchāl has attracted renewed attention in sustainable architecture and passive cooling design. Researchers examine how its principles (radiative cooling, insulation, thermal mass, shade strategies) might inform low-energy building in arid zones.16 Some architects and scholars promote “moonlight cooling” or night-sky cooling strategies inspired by yakhchāl designs.
Conservation efforts are uneven. In many cases, lack of documentation, material decay, or modern encroachment impede full restoration. But the yakhchāl remains a powerful symbol of vernacular technological ingenuity in extreme environments.
Ice-House and Baraf Khana Techniques in Mughal and Later India
Historical References and Early Accounts
The Indian subcontinent’s engagement with ice storage and cooling technologies reflects both indigenous experimentation and intercultural transfer. By the sixteenth century, the Mughal court’s exposure to Persian engineering, combined with its own monumental architectural tradition, produced a distinctive but limited adoption of ice-related facilities known as baraf khanas (“ice houses”) or ab-dar khanas (“water cooling rooms”). These terms appear intermittently in Mughal chronicles and travelers’ reports, though surviving physical remains are rare.
Abu’l-Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari describes imperial provisions for cooling and perfuming water during the reign of Akbar (r. 1556–1605), emphasizing the luxury of temperature control as a royal prerogative.17 In Jahangir’s Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, there are passing references to the delight of chilled beverages and sherbets, sometimes made possible by imported ice from Kashmir or the Himalayas.18 The very act of procuring ice for the plains, by caravan or elephant relay, became a demonstration of royal logistics and abundance. Later Mughal accounts and Persian travelers in India mention “cold cellars” (sard-khana) beneath palaces, designed for wine and food storage during the blistering summers of Delhi and Agra.19
Architecture and Function
Unlike the conical, above-ground yakhchāl, Indian baraf khanas were typically subterranean or semi-subterranean vaults, lined with stone or lime plaster. The humid climate of northern India made large-scale ice preservation through radiative freezing impractical; therefore, Mughal engineers focused on insulation and air-cooling, not production.
Many palace complexes featured “cool rooms” adjacent to fountains, channels (nahr), or underground ducts conveying cooled air or water.20 These were architectural expressions of royal comfort, extending the Persian sard-khana concept into new climatic conditions.
In the Red Fort of Delhi and the Agra Fort, for example, archaeologists have documented partially subterranean chambers known locally as teh-khana (underground apartments) that maintain significantly lower temperatures than the surrounding air, thanks to thick masonry, high thermal inertia, and indirect ventilation shafts.21 While not ice houses per se, they performed analogous cooling functions and often received imported ice for festivals or elite gatherings.
The Imported Ice Trade and Colonial Adaptations
By the early nineteenth century, colonial expansion and the Boston–Calcutta ice trade introduced mechanical and global dimensions to the story. In 1833, the American entrepreneur Frederic Tudor began exporting blocks of New England ice to India, inaugurating a transoceanic commerce that relied on massive masonry “ice houses” in Calcutta (1833), Bombay (1834), and Madras (1842) for storage.22 These cylindrical, double-walled structures, such as the Madras Ice House (later Vivekanandar Illam), used thick brick insulation and ventilated domes to maintain the imported ice for weeks.23 Although technologically distinct from the Persian yakhchāl, they drew on similar architectural logic: mass, shading, and airflow.
The British “ice house” thus represents both continuity and rupture, continuity in the use of thermal mass and evaporative principles, rupture in its dependence on global shipping and colonial capital. These structures catered to expatriate and elite Indian populations, sustaining social hierarchies of comfort that had earlier surrounded Mughal baraf khanas.
Climate Constraints and Technological Divergence
The crucial environmental divergence between Persia and India lies in humidity and diurnal range. The Persian plateau’s arid conditions and wide temperature swings (up to 25 °C difference between day and night) make radiative cooling feasible. In contrast, the Gangetic plain’s high humidity and monsoon seasons prevent night-sky freezing.24 Consequently, passive ice generation never became widespread in India. Instead, ingenuity focused on adaptation of evaporative cooling through porous earthen jars (matkas), khus-khus reed screens, and underground reservoirs, methods that addressed comfort rather than true ice preservation.
The Mughal palatial landscape thus reflects a conceptual inheritance from Persia, an aspiration to control heat, without wholesale technological replication. Ice remained a luxury import, while architecture provided its own climatic palliatives.25
Cultural Symbolism and Social Meaning
In both Persian and Indian contexts, cold was never merely physical; it was symbolic. To serve chilled sherbet in June at Agra was to enact dominion over nature, to display imperial power through command of elements. Baraf became an emblem of refinement (nazakat) and excess, recorded in poetry and court etiquette. Yet beyond palaces, occasional regional practices suggest popular fascination with artificial cooling. In Kashmir and the Himalayan foothills, snow pits and shaded storehouses supplied nearby towns with seasonal ice, foreshadowing small-scale vernacular continuities.26
By the late nineteenth century, mechanical ice production and the colonial trade rendered both yakhchāls and baraf khanas obsolete. Still, their architectural logic persisted in the Indian imagination: cool cellars, underground stores, and the association of coldness with luxury and modernity remained enduring metaphors.27
Comparative Analysis: Persia ↔ India
Continuities and Divergences in Design Principles
When the Persian yakhchāl and the Indian baraf khana are examined side by side, what emerges is not direct technological transmission but selective adaptation under constraint. The two share certain architectural principles (thermal mass, insulation, subterranean depth, and limited ventilation) yet diverge in how these were operationalized.
In both regions, the underlying objective was thermal stability through passive means: to slow heat ingress, minimize convection, and exploit diurnal temperature shifts. In Iran’s deserts, where nocturnal radiative cooling could drop temperatures below freezing, engineers harnessed nature to create ice. In India, where humidity and monsoons nullified that process, architects designed structures that preserved or enhanced comfort rather than generated ice. Thus, the Persian prototype relied on radiative cooling, while the Indian analogue turned toward evaporative and convective cooling.28
These differing solutions underscore a larger truth: environmental architecture is inherently regional. The yakhchāl’s steep conical dome was a response to solar geometry and dry-air radiation; India’s flatter vaults and thicker sub-chambers responded to saturated air and heat retention. In both cases, architecture became environmental technology long before the term existed.29
Environmental and Climatic Constraints
Climate determined not only technique but feasibility. The Persian plateau’s aridity and large diurnal range (20–25 °C difference) allowed open-air freezing ponds to form ice nightly in winter.30 Conversely, the Indo-Gangetic plain’s high vapor pressure and limited night cooling made such ponds useless: dew formed instead of frost. Hence, the Indian systems concentrated on insulation, shading, and airflow rather than radiative freezing.31
Material culture followed climate. Where Persian builders employed the impermeable lime-ash composite sarooj, Indian masons favored lime-plaster (chunam) with organic additives (molasses, jaggery, and jute fibers) to mitigate moisture.32 The difference exemplifies regional engineering pragmatism rather than deficiency. Likewise, water management diverged: Iran’s qanat networks could supply controlled trickles to ice ponds, whereas India’s reliance on surface reservoirs exposed water to heat and contamination.33
Socio-Economic and Political Drivers
Both traditions were sustained by elite demand and symbolic prestige. In Iran, yakhchāls served urban communities but were often built under royal or civic patronage, reflecting the city’s ability to command resources in a desert economy.34 In Mughal India, cooling and ice became signs of sovereignty, the emperor’s control over elemental extremes. Courtly use of ice, sherbets, and perfumed cool water conferred legitimacy by demonstrating mastery of abundance.35
Yet economic structures differed sharply. Persian yakhchāls integrated into local exchange: towns stored ice in winter and sold it in summer. In India, the resource was not cyclical but imported, making it a luxury commodity rather than a civic utility. That distinction explains why Persian ice houses dotted provincial landscapes while Indian baraf khanas remained confined to imperial precincts.36
Technological Transfer and Adaptation
Persian engineers and artisans were active in the Mughal court, but their knowledge underwent contextual filtration. Akbar’s employment of Iranian architects (notably Mir Mirak Ghani Shirazi) introduced the aesthetic and conceptual language of cooling (domes, badgirs, and subterranean chambers) yet not the climatic feasibility of the yakhchāl itself.37 Instead, the Mughal sard-khana and ab-dar khana embodied a translation of ideals: the pursuit of thermal pleasure through water, fragrance, and airflow rather than ice.38
This adaptation aligns with the broader Mughal pattern of Perso-Islamic syncretism, adopting Persian forms but re-calibrating them for Indian realities. The yakhchāl’s spirit survived, but its physics changed.39
Limits, Decline, and Legacy
Both systems eventually succumbed to industrial modernity. By the mid-nineteenth century, mechanical ice manufacture and steam-driven transport rendered passive systems obsolete. Yet their architectural DNA persists: the emphasis on mass, orientation, shading, and ventilation continues to inform sustainable design across the Middle East and South Asia. Modern architects increasingly revisit these vernacular strategies as models for low-energy climate control.40
The comparative study of yakhchāl and baraf khana reveals a deep continuity in human ingenuity, how cultures re-engineered nature’s extremes within their means. If Persia achieved the alchemy of freezing deserts, India achieved the art of tempering heat. Both, in their own idioms, exemplify the moral of pre-industrial architecture: that technology thrives when it listens to climate, not when it seeks to overpower it.
Legacy, Modern Relevance, and Research Gaps
Influence on Vernacular Cooling and Passive Architecture
Though most yakhchāls and baraf khanas fell into ruin or obsolescence by the twentieth century, their architectural logic quietly persisted in vernacular building across West and South Asia. In Iran, the forms of thick mud-brick walls, domed ventilation, and subterranean storage directly inspired later domestic sardābs (basement cool rooms) and bādgīr (wind-catcher) systems still visible in Yazd and Kerman. In India, elements such as underground teh-khana apartments, high-mass plinths, and water-evaporative courtyards carried the lineage forward within Mughal and regional palace traditions.41
These continuities reveal that the yakhchāl’s legacy was not technological artifact alone but a design philosophy, an understanding of thermal balance, orientation, and material intelligence. Modern architects studying “bioclimatic” or “passive solar” design in arid regions frequently cite yakhchāls as an early precedent for zero-energy cooling.42
Reinterpretation in Contemporary Architecture
The last two decades have witnessed a revival of interest in heritage-based sustainability, particularly in Iranian and Indian academic programs. Projects have modeled yakhchāl domes using computational fluid dynamics to quantify airflow and heat transfer.43 In parallel, experimental designs in Rajasthan and Gujarat have recreated baraf khana-like cooling vaults using stabilized earth and lime plasters for rural cold-chain storage of produce.44
This “neo-vernacular” approach is not nostalgic imitation but pragmatic adaptation. By merging ancient empirical knowledge with digital simulation, architects are testing whether the radiative cooling principle, the same night-sky heat exchange that froze Persian ponds, can supplement renewable energy systems in modern climates.45 The results suggest measurable thermal savings and reduced carbon loads, underscoring that ancient design still speaks to ecological urgency.
Archaeological Preservation and Documentation
Despite renewed scholarly curiosity, documentation of extant yakhchāls remains inconsistent. Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) has catalogued only about sixty intact or semi-intact structures nationwide, many in deteriorating condition.46 A number of these sites lack protective status or structural reinforcement, leaving them vulnerable to erosion and urban encroachment. Laser-scanning and photogrammetry projects by Iranian and Italian teams (2018–2023) have begun generating digital twins for conservation planning.47
In India, the situation is more precarious. Because baraf khanas were often subterranean or built within palace compounds later repurposed, few are accessible or even recognized as heritage. A 2021 survey by the INTACH Delhi Chapter located only three likely surviving vaults dating to the eighteenth century.48 Without systematic excavation or climate-control studies, our understanding of their material and thermal properties remains fragmentary.
Research Gaps and Future Directions
Current scholarship still faces several lacunae.
- Chronological uncertainty: Archaeological dating of yakhchāls seldom exceeds stylistic inference; radiocarbon or thermoluminescence analysis could clarify their true antiquity.49
- Material science: Laboratory testing of sarooj and related mortars under controlled humidity would refine models of thermal conductivity.50
- Comparative climatology: Quantitative comparisons between Persian desert and Indian monsoon climates could illuminate thresholds for viable passive freezing.51
- Cultural anthropology: Oral histories from communities near surviving yakhchāls or Himalayan snow pits may preserve intangible knowledge of maintenance, ritual, and commerce.52
By addressing these gaps, future interdisciplinary work could reposition the yakhchāl and baraf khana not merely as relics but as templates for climate-resilient architecture. In a century defined by energy crisis and warming temperatures, their lessons are moral as well as technical: that sustainability begins not with invention but with memory.
Conclusion
From the domed ice towers of Yazd to the shaded vaults beneath Mughal palaces, the quest to master heat and preserve cold reveals a continuity of human imagination across climate, empire, and belief. The yakhchāl stands as a triumph of vernacular engineering, a system born not of mechanical intervention but of environmental dialogue. Its conical form and subterranean logic express an ancient ecological intelligence: the understanding that to endure the desert, one must cooperate with it.
In India, the translation of this principle produced the baraf khana and the sard-khana, not copies but reinterpretations of a shared ideal. Where Persian builders harnessed aridity to generate ice, Indian architects tamed humidity to create relief. The difference between them is the difference between the desert night and the monsoon dawn: two climates, two civilizations, one aspiration.
This comparative history illuminates more than technology. It demonstrates that architecture can encode cosmology. The yakhchāl mirrored the Persian worldview of balance between the elements (earth, air, water, and fire) while Mughal cooling chambers embodied the imperial promise of comfort through control, a spatial rhetoric of dominion over the tropics.53 Both reveal how the act of cooling, far from mundane, carried ethical and aesthetic dimensions: stewardship of nature, celebration of order, and expression of power.
Today, amid accelerating climate crisis, these ancient experiments speak again. They remind us that sustainability is not a modern invention but an inheritance, rediscovered whenever necessity forces humility. The yakhchāl and baraf khana endure as metaphors for resilience as architecture that cooled without carbon, innovated without rupture, and survived because it obeyed the laws it sought to master. In reclaiming their principles, we recover not only lost technologies but lost wisdom: that the truest measure of advancement is harmony with the environment that sustains us.
Appendix
Footnotes
- On the uncertainty of 400 BCE dating, see general caution in architectural studies of early Persian structures.
- See discussion in “An Overview of Iranian Ice Repositories,” METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture 29, no. 2 (2012): 223–234.
- On geographical concentration and climate, see Archnet summary of typical yakhchāl design, available at archnet.org/sites/6442.
- Archnet describes the tripartite components: yakhband, shade wall, and subterranean reservoir.
- See METU Journal, 29, no. 2 (2012): 229.
- Earth Architecture notes wall thickness up to two meters; see “Yakhchal Ice House,” Earth Architecture (2011).
- Earth Architecture, “Sarooj Composition,” ibid.
- “The Physics of Freezing at the Iranian Yakhchal,” Max Fordham Journal (2020).
- “Yakhchal Ice Maker from Iran and Modern Use for Radiant Sky Cooling,” Ecomena (2021).
- Ibid., wall heights reported up to 10 m.
- “Persian Ice Towers,” Archaeology Now Blog (2020).
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- “The Physics of Freezing at the Iranian Yakhchal,” Max Fordham Journal (2020).
- METU Journal, citing Fryer’s 1672 observations near Shiraz.
- Max Fordham Journal, “Physics of Freezing,” (2020).
- Abu’l-Fazl ʿAllāmī, Ain-i-Akbari, trans. H. Blochmann (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1873), vol. 1, 67.
- Jahangir, The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Memoirs of Jahangir), trans. Alexander Rogers, ed. Henry Beveridge (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1909–1914), vol. 1, 112.
- Catherine B. Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 145–148; Ebba Koch, Mughal Architecture: An Outline of Its History and Development (1526–1858) (Munich: Prestel, 1991).
- TOI News Desk. “Cooling Techniques from Mughal Architecture before the Invention of AC.” The Times of India (July 30, 2024): https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/cooling-techniques-from-mughal-architecture-before-the-invention-of-ac/articleshow/112110553.cms.
- Archaeological Survey of India, Agra Fort Conservation Report (New Delhi: ASI, 2010), 58–60.
- Gavin Weightman, The Frozen-Water Trade: How Ice from New England Kept the World Cool (London: HarperCollins, 2003), 85–101.
- “Madras Ice House: Cold Comfort from Boston,” The Hindu, 22 June 2019.
- Kiwamu Yanagisawa, Mika Yoshinaga, Hidekatsu Tsukamoto, and Kei Yamamoto, “Temperature and Humidity Environment of Traditional Courtyard House and Modern Apartment in and around Delhi, India,” AIJ Journal of Technology and Design 23, no. 54 (2017): 603–606.
- Ibid.; see also Armin Mehdipour and Ali Namazian, “Yakhchal; Climate-Responsive Persian Traditional Architecture,” International Journal of Architectural Research 6 (2012): 89–103.
- V. K. Raina, Himalayan Glaciars: A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change, Bangalore: Geological Society of India, 2009.
- Weightman, The Frozen-Water Trade, 189.
- Mehdi N. Bahadori, “Passive Cooling Systems in Iranian Architecture,” Scientific American 238, no. 2 (1978): 144–154.
- Vahid Ghobadian, Climatic Analysis of Traditional Iranian Buildings (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1998), 57–62.
- Alireza Dehghani-Sanij and Mehdi N. Bahadori, “The History of Traditional Iranian Ice-Houses,” in Ice-Houses: Energy Storage for Cold Climate, ed. Mehdi N. Bahadori et al. (London: Elsevier, 2021), 131–151.
- Kiwamu Yanagisawa, Mika Yoshinaga, Hidekatsu Tsukamoto, and Kei Yamamoto, “Temperature and Humidity,” 603–606.
- Indi Architecture, Luxurious Lime Plasters in Northern India (June 19, 2023), https://www.indiarchitecture.com/luxurious-lime-plasters-of-india.
- Dale R. Lightfoot , “The Origin and Diffusion of Qanats in Arabia: New Evidence from the Northern and Southern Peninsula.” The Geographical Journal 166, no. 3 (September 2000): 215–226.
- Armin Mehdipour and Ali Namazian, “Yakhchal; Climate-Responsive Persian Traditional Architecture,” International Journal of Architectural Research 6 (2012): 89–103.
- Abu’l-Fazl, Ain-i-Akbari, vol. 1, 67; Jahangir, Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, vol. 1, 112.
- Asher, Architecture of Mughal India, 147–149.
- Koch, Mughal Architecture, 71–72.
- TOI News Desk, The Times of India (July 30, 2024).
- Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Writing the Mughal World: Studies on Culture and Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 205–209.
- Mehdi N. Bahadori, Scientific American 238, no. 2 (1978): 144–154.
- Vahid Ghobadian, Climatic Design of Traditional Iranian Buildings, 57–62.
- Mehdi N. Bahadori, Scientific American 238, no. 2 (1978): 144–154.
- Ahmad H. Zaki, Peter J. Richards, and Rajnish N. Sharma. “Analysis of Airflow inside a Two-Sided Wind Catcher Building.” Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 190 (2019): 71–82.
- T. Defraeye, et al., “Passive evaporative coolers for postharvest storage of fruit and vegetables: Where to best deploy them and how well do they perform,” Frontiers in Food Science and Technology (2023).
- Mehdi N. Bahadori, Scientific American 238, no. 2 (1978): 144–154.
- Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO), National Register of Historic Ice Houses (Tehran: ICHHTO Press, 2019), 2–5.
- Francesca Pagliari et al., “Digital Documentation of Iran’s Yazd Yakhchāls: A Heritage BIM Approach,” International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences XLVI-M-2023 (2023): 221–228.
- Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Delhi Underground Heritage Survey Report (New Delhi: INTACH, 2021), 14–18.
- Dehghani-Sanij and Bahadori, “The History of Traditional Iranian Ice-Houses,” 148–149.
- Vahid Ghobadian, Climatic Design of Traditional Iranian Buildings, 57–62.
- Shouraseni Sen Roy and Robert C. Balling Jr., “Analysis of trends in maximum and minimum temperature, diurnal temperature range, and cloud cover over India,” Geophysical Research Letters 32 (2005): L12702.
- Elizabeth Beasley, Michael Harverson, and Susan Roaf, Living with the Desert: Working Buildings of the Iranian Plateau (Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1982).
- Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiar, The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 45–49.
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Originally published by Brewminate, 10.09.2025, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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