Ancient Underground City of Water Found Beneath Iran’s Abarkuh
Researchers investigating under a collection of five historic houses in the city of Abarkuh in Iran’s Yazd province have found something long suspected. An underground city stretches out below the modern one, dating back to the Qajar era.
Abarkuh’s governor, Hossein Hatami, announced the discovery in an interview. The existence of such a city had long been rumored given the presence of small rooms carved out of the stone beneath the foundation blocks of the historic houses here.
The underground structures were likely used for transferring water around the city, as well as a refuge in times of danger, reports Anatolian Archaeology. The discoveries include a waterway passing through the underground city, carved from the natural stone bedrock.
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Old aerial photos of Abarkuh show that older houses in the city were build directly onto rocky outcrops, which provided the best foundations. Over time the spaces between these foundations were irrigated and turned into gardens, and the rocky sections of Abarkuh were linked with walkways.
The flowing water underground would have acted to cool the chambers, making them an ideal refuge from the heat of the day. The water channels define the layout of the city, with many of the historic houses containing steps to these channels to access the water.
It is the underground waterway which has allowed the discovery to be dated to the Qajar era. The stonework on the aqueduct resembles that known from other Qajar structures elsewhere.
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The Qajar dynasty, or Turkic origin, ruled Iran from 1789 to 1925 and were central to the unification of Iran in the 18th century. They deposed Lotf ‘Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty and reasserted sovereignty over much of the Caucasus, the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
The historic area of Abarkuh totals some 170 hectares, and of this more than a third is dedicated to the waterways. However over time many of the channels dried up and were no longer used as a source of water instead carrying wastewater from the modern city, which has sadly limited excavations.
Header Image: The passageways underneath historic Abarkuh are carved out of solid rock, and would have been cooled by water flowing through channels out of the heat of the day. Source: IRNA.
