If you fly over Iran by plane, you can see a strange and mesmerizing landscape. Among the yellow sands and rocky wastelands, endless chains of holes stretch out like beads scattered across the dry skin of the earth. They extend for miles, crossing valleys, encircling foothills, and encompassing entire provinces. To the uninitiated, it may appear as if it were the work of aliens or a bizarre modern geodetic survey. But the truth is much more surprising: these holes are the entrances to a grand underground water supply system that people began building more than 2,500 years ago, and they are still using it today.
How to get water without a pump in a hot and water-scarce area
Iran is a country where rain is a rare and capricious visitor, where the sun burns everything alive, and where water is more valuable than gold. In such conditions, the only way to survive is to find a source of moisture where no one expects it. However, the ancient Persians were able to do just that – they found it underground, realizing that in the mountains, where the snow melts every spring, water seeps deep into the earth, accumulating in aquifers.
The question was how to get this water to the cities and fields that were dozens of kilometers away, when there were no pumps, electricity, or pipes. The answer was ingeniously simple: they needed to dig an underground channel with a slope that would allow the water to flow on its own, driven only by gravity. There were no mechanisms or fuel required; it was all about digging and hard work. The calculations of their illiterate ancestors were incredibly successful, much to the envy of modern engineers and scientists.
This system was called kyariz, or rope, because in Persian, the word “kyariz” does not mean a rope, as one might think, but an underground water conduit. In the 17th century, an Iranian scholar and traveler noted that “the water is brought from the mountains, twenty versts or more away, and then transported underground.” Indeed, kyariz are true underground rivers, created by human hands. They start high in the mountains, where the snow caps feed the aquifers, and end in cities, gardens, and irrigated fields.
Today, there are about thirty thousand qanats in the system, with a total length of more than 300,000 kilometers. This is why the view from above resembles an alien drawing or a necklace of beads. The length of the qanats is comparable to that of the Great Wall of China, but while the wall is visible to all, the qanats are hidden underground.
Each such water conduit consists of two main parts: an inclined underground tunnel through which the water flows, and vertical shafts that lead to the surface. The shafts are located approximately every 50 meters, and it is their openings that can be seen from above. These shafts are not only necessary for construction purposes, but also for maintenance purposes, as they allow workers to descend into the tunnel to clean the waterway, remove blockages, and monitor the condition of the canal.
In urban areas or on farms, the water often comes close to the surface, and in some cases, it can be accessed directly from the outlet well without having to dig deep. But in the mountains where the kyariz begins, the depth of the mines can reach from 200 to 360 meters. The most famous of the active kyarizes, in the city of Gonabad, was built 2,700 years ago. It is 45 kilometers long and is still in operation.
Mohandi are the builders of qanats: an honorable but dangerous job
A kyariz builder is not just a digger. In Iran, such craftsmen are called mohandi, and the profession is passed down from generation to generation. Not everyone could become a mohandi: one had to possess a special skill for finding water, understand geology, and, when creating a kyariz, be able to determine the slope with an accuracy of a millimeter per kilometer. The slope had to be neither too steep to prevent water from flowing quickly, nor too shallow to prevent stagnation.
Somewhere, had to create cascades and waterfalls, and then again to level the course. This is a very thin line, when the water had to run by gravity, but slowly. Visit. A F R I N I K . C O M . For the full article. And to create kyariz, the Mohandi’s tools were only leather bags for the removal of soil, ropes, shovels, and axes. No theodolites, levels, or laser levels only eyes, experience, and intuition.
The work of the Mohandi was honorable, but also one of the most dangerous in the world. Three or four people would descend into a vertical shaft dozens of meters deep and begin to dig a horizontal tunnel. One person would break the rock, another would fill a leather bag with soil, a third would lift it to the surface, and a fourth would receive it. If the soil was soft, they could progress up to forty meters in a day. However, the deeper the channel became, the slower the work progressed. Sometimes, it could take a full day to progress even a few centimeters. Therefore, it took years, sometimes even decades, to build a single kyariz. This was an incredibly long and arduous task.
Why was the work dangerous? Because at any moment the earth could fall in, and then there was no way back. The walls of the tunnel could not always withstand the rock’s pressure, and the Mohandis could be buried alive. Or the water could suddenly break through, flooding the passage. Therefore, only the most experienced master dared to descend into the mine to a great depth. The earth that was pulled out was placed in a ring around the hole, which is why they look like craters from above. But it wasn’t done for beauty’s sake; it was done for practicality’s sake – the cone protected the mouth of the mine from wind, sand, and rain. Today, they serve as landmarks for the cable water supply system.
There is always water in the kyarizs: a unique ancient structure that has surpassed modern experts
Why is this ancient system so successful that even modern technology can’t beat it? The answer is simple: qanats don’t rely on electricity, fuel, or complex machinery. They don’t need pumps that can break down. They don’t suffer from power outages. The water flows naturally, slowly but steadily, year-round. The source is the melting snow in the mountains, which occurs with remarkable consistency, regardless of whether it rains down below.
In addition, underground channels protect the water from evaporation. In a hot climate, where the sun can evaporate any open body of water within days, this is a significant advantage. The water in the kyariz remains cool, clean, and fresh. To further cool the water, the Persians developed special towers, tall structures with openings through which the wind could blow over the water reservoirs, lowering the temperature and creating a pleasant coolness in the homes.
During wars and times of turmoil, qanats saved entire cities on more than one occasion. Enemies could block roads, burn crops, and destroy walls, but they could not deprive the inhabitants of water, which flowed underground, invisible to the naked eye. This system was resilient to any natural or social upheaval. Today, thousands of years later, most of Iran’s historical settlements are still served by qanats, although time and technology have taken their toll, with modern water pipelines replacing the canals that still provide clean, natural water from the mountains.
