Kareez:

The Architecture Masterpiece for Building an Empire

through Development of Cities

by

Mohammad hassan vahedian maleki

A study with compliance to the requirements of

architecture and culture 102

Supervisor:

Ms.Zatur

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Introduction

1.1. Importance of water for civilization

Availability of water is a must for living in any area. Water brings life and has a

vital role in development of a region. It is core to every settlement since early

settlements and civilizations in the history were close to water bodies and

rivers in Mesopotamia. For the primary settlements which were basically on

agriculture and cultivation of arable lands, the water had a great value. In

addition, the labor force deriving from both human and animal sources

encompassing number of farmers, workers and animals that were used to

work on the arable lands required water to drink. Thus, further developments

of the region were, and to some extent are, highly dependent upon the

accessibility to the water for the purpose of irrigation as well as drinking. Lack

of water cause serious problems and may act as a barrier to the development.

Without water agricultural products will not grow and man and animals cannot

survive. Having no water to consume, any civilization emerged in a city is

prone to abolition and abandonment.

1.2.Water and development of cities

History of ancient civilization is knitted to their level of access to water.

Civilization is symbolized in cities where flourishing economy and high

standard skilled are agglomerated. Ancient civilization in archaic cities had

many sections where the main centralized quarter was ruling section that

embodied king or governor as well as other ruling system. The surrounding

had a defense function and inhabitants used to live there. This area was

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encircled by defense walls of the city that arable lands were located out of this

wall. Besides the trade and essential crafts inside the wall, the majority of

inhabitants used to work as peasants on arable lands. Apart from wars,

natural disasters and epidemic diseases, the sustainability of the city was a

function of the area of farms. The larger the surrounding farms, the more

potential to increase the city population. Once again this urges the necessity

of water for irrigation and drinking. So the extent to which inhabitants had

access to water was among the important parameters to identify the

largeness of the city.

1.3.Tackling the water scarcity

To identify the importance of a particular city one needs to remember that

there were many other factors inter alia political situation, religious reasons

and being located on the important routes. These factors could results in

development of the city but water constraints impeded further growth. Water

access varied in each region and played as a limitation to the development of

that city. Many cities had the extensive potential for enlargement but lack of

access to sufficient water was an obstacle. This had to be tackled specially for

those cities with strategic position. There were number of cities that needed to

be expanded. It was the point that local governments sought remedy for the

problem of water scarcity. The solution was simple; they had to bring water

from farther areas to the town. In spite of the simplicity of concept, the way to

do so was not easy. For the first time, the concept came into existence by

people staying in the Land of Pars so called Persians. Thanks to their

extensive knowledge in architecture, Persians constructed underground

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tunnels called Kareez. The invention of Kareez dated back not later than

seventh century BC (Wulff 1968)1. Due to compliance of the system with

Sharia of Islam regarding the consumption of water, the architecture of system

were adopted by Arabs and soon expanded to the world being ruled under

Islamic regulations.

2. Problem statement

The water shortage has been hindrance for development. Special attention

must be paid to the semi arid and arid areas where these regions suffer

inherently from severe limitation of water availability. Since semi arid and arid

regions occupied large portion of Persian Empire, this problem called for

special consideration. In harsh climatic condition of desert cities the

temperature fluctuates in winter and summer and difference between the day

and night temperature can exceed 40º C. The sun radiation is very straight

and strong and the clear sky with no cloud does not attenuate the intensity of

solar radiation. The humidity rate is very low yielding in higher level of

evaporation. The precipitation is insignificant and rare and only limited to the

winter time. These all cause in huge doughtiness in the region. The remote

distance from water bodies to ameliorate the situation works just as an

intensifier and exacerbates the aridity. In summer when daytime temperature

easily reaches above 40º under shadow, the need of water to quench and

compensate the wasted body water by sweating increases. In desert, water is

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1. For more information on the origin and date of invention of Kareez please see the section 5.2 of this article.

§

deemed to have equally the same value of life. Any single drop of this

precious fluid is counted. The survival and development of any civilization in

this region crucially relies on the water access. The only solution is to bring

water from far distanced area to the city. The brought water had conditions to

be taken care of including that it must remain sanitary thereby potable, reduce

the evaporation rate, low cost harvesting but still automatic, sustained supply

and minimum water wastages. But how did the Persians almost 3000 years

ago challenge the nature to transfer water to their cities in arid region and

meet all the above criteria?

3. Objective

This research aims to study architecture of Kareez and its pertinent aspects

as follows:

a. The definition of Kareez

b. The origin of Kareez

c. The importance and distribution of Kareez in the world

d. Architectural and urban layout of kareez

e. The construction method of Kareez

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4. Methodology

This study is largely based on reviewing existing literature available in books

and scholarly articles, the method which is known as library study. Where

applicable, the secondary data via internet will be retrieved.

5. Discussion

This section deals with architecture of Kareez and comprises of four parts

namely the definition, the origin, the function and the construction as follows:

5.1.The definition of Kareez

One can find different definitions for Kareez but of the most precise ones is

delivered by Rafiei (2000) as: ‘an underground tunnel (conduit) to supply

water from water tables’. The underground water is not brought up to the

earth’s surface but rather it is drained out to the surface. The tunnels are built

slightly tilted from horizon with just a few degrees of slope in order to

manipulate the gravity of the Earth to flow the water inside of the earth onto its

surface. Kareez is a Persian world meaning the conduit for underground

water. It is called by different names in different areas such as qanat in Arabic

and foggara in French language. It is also known as galleria in Spain, khotara

in Morocco, aflaj in Arabian Peninsula, foggara in North Africa, kanerjing in

China and auon in Saudi Arabia and Egypt (Salih 2006).

5.2.The origin of Kareez

All scholars believe and agree on the origin of Kareez to be the Persia, the

modern Iran. But some convergences occur on the time of invention. Doman

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(1908) stated the Persians as the first nation who transferred water. Wulff

(1968) elucidating the Persia as the actual birthplace of Kareez, indicates that

the Kareez technology has been invented long ago before Christ. He refers to

the report by the King Sargon II, the Assyrian king who was in a campaign in

Persia in seventh century BC, indicating an underground water system in

operation near the Lake Urmia. According to the Persians model, his son King

Sennacherib constructed an irrigation system around Nineveh and city of

Arbela. The other well documented evidence is an Egyptian inscription

disclosing the donation of idea to Egyptians after the ancient Egypt was

conquered by Persians’ Navy captain Scylax in 518 B.C. The Darius I

transferred the water from 100 miles away to the oasis of Karg from an

underground water table of Nile River. Remnants of the Kareez are still in

operation. The friendliness of the conqueror partly contributed to bestowal of

the Pharaoh title on Darius. The contribution disseminated widely as the

settlement at the oasis still call it Persian works. The other scholars mention

older date for the invention of Kareez e.g. Bickman et al (1999) acknowledge

the Persian originating to the first millennium before the Christ. Lightfoot

(2000) in his article ‘The Origin and Diffusion of Qanats in Arabia’ cites a

holistic number of articles denoting Persia as the kareez origin dating back to

tenth and eighth century B.C.

5.3. The importance of Kareez in the world

5.3.1. Importance

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Today, groundwater is the source to supply more than 1.5 billion dwellers in

the world while also provides water to irrigate for agriculture. More than one-

third of landmass of the earth is irrigated by the groundwater (Salih, 2006).

The table below shows importance of underground, only for cultivating

purposes:

Table 1: Cultivation lands depend on underground water, data retrieved from

Salih (2006)

COUNTRY U.S Iran Morocco Algeria Libya TunisiaCultivation Based on

Underground Irrigation (%)

45 58 67 75 100 100

Using underground water (Kareez as the carrier of water) is not only important

for the arid zones, but also in many regions where surface water is abundant.

For example in groundwater use exceeds 70 percent of the total water

consumption in many European countries (Salih, 2006).

Having more than 30000 kareez in use with average length of 6 kilometres in

Iran, the total length of the digging path of kareez only in Iran is almost 7.7

times the circumference of our Earth (Ahmadi, Samani and Malekian 2010).

5.3.2. World

Kareez is vastly distributed in the world because it simply minimizes the

evaporation and produce rather clean water. Kareez technology is existed in

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34 countries today (Salih, 2006). The map below shows the distribution of

kareez over the world (figure 1):

Fig. 1: Worldwide Distribution of kareez in darker colour

Source: Salih (2006)

According to Lightfoot (1996) six Kareezes around Karama in the Jordan

Valley in the 1920s were reopened for irrigating about 600 hectares of fields

and gardens.

The geographical distribution of kareez in the world is traced in four continents

of Asia e.g. Jordan, Palestine, Pakistan, Yemen, India and Cambodia, Africa

e.g. Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunis, Europe e.g. Spain, Italy, Germany,

Englang, France and Cyprus, and the Americas e.g. Chile, Peru and Mexico

(Motiee, et al. 2006).

5.4.Architectural and urban layout of Kareez

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As urban layout of kareez is in service of public use, architectural layout

mainly lies in the category of private profits. Architectural layout of the kareez

mostly related to gaining of their benefits in buildings where tunnels run

beneath houses, private access points provide water for various domestic

uses. Traditionally in houses of wealthy people, special rooms are constructed

beside the underground stream with tall shafts reaching upward to wind

catchers [Bad-geer] above roof level.

According to the Bahadori (1978) (Figure 2), a shaft (b) connects the kareez

to the basement of the building to be cooled. Hot and dry air comes to the

kareez through one of the shafts (a) and is cooled as it flows along the water

that usually is cold. Then, the cold and moist air from the shaft enters the

house (c). The mixture of air from the kareez and air from the tower (d)

circulates through the basement. This is a traditional passive design of many

Iranian houses in arid zones.

Figure 2: Integration of kareez and badgeer in passive cooling system

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Source: Bahadori (1978)

A single kareez can serve several badgers (windcatchers). There are

significant advantages to kareez’s water delivery system including:

(a). Putting the majority of the channel underground reduces water loss

from seepage and evaporation;

(b). Since the system is fed entirely by gravity, the need for pumps is

eliminated; and

(c). It exploits groundwater as a renewable resource (UNESCO 2007)

5.5.The construction method of Kareez

Thanks to detailed descriptions by several early writers, we have a good idea

of the techniques used by the original Kareez builders. According to

Wulff(1968) Vitruvius, the first systematic historian of technology, delineated

the Kareez system in technical detail in his historic work De Architectura

(about 80 B.C.). In the ninth century A.D., at the request of a Persian

provincial governor, Abdullah ibn-Tahir, a group of writers compiled a treatise

on the subject titled Kitab-e Quniy. A recently discovered book by Mohammad

Karaji, a Persian scholar of the 10th century A.D., has a chapter on Kareez

construction. The technique he describes is basically the same as those

practiced today, eleven century later. A step by step construction of Kareez is

as follows (Wulff 1968):

(a). UNDERGROUND AQUEDUCT conveys water gently downhill from the

highlands to distribution canals. The water source is the head well which

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reaches down to the water table. The other shafts provide ventilation and

give access for cleaning and repair of the conduit tunnel below.

(b). EXCAVATION OF A QANAT (Figure 3) begins at the downhill. It begins

with a trial well which is shown in the figure below in the far left. Then, a

tunnel connects all the trial wells and the ventilation wells. The tunnel is

slightly sloped toward the water table at the highhill to allow the automatic

flow of water to the city. Excluding the discharge point, the tunnel does not

masonry material. The ventilation wells are about 45 meter away from

each other and can be utilised to winch the excavated rock to the surface

too. Oil lamps were used to make sure that digging the tunnel is on the

right track. A bad flame was the sign of insufficient amount of oxygen in

the tunnel to breathe.

Figure 3: Excavation of a Kareez

Source: Wulff (1968)

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(c).TUNNEL CROSS SECTIONS (Figure 4) show the variation of a kareez

conduit or tunnel. It was supported by the tile hoops for clay type of the soil

whereas for the well-compacted soil the walls may be left unlined (b). If the

head well should go dry and therefore need to he dug deeper, the conduit

would also need to be deepened (c).

Figure 4: Tunnel cross sections

Source: Wulff (1968)

(d). REMAINS OF PERSEPOLIS (Figure 5) the ancient capital of Persia built

by Darius in 520 B.C., is illustrated at the centre of the aerial photograph

on the next page. The rows of small holes reveal the presence of several

Kareez systems below the surface: each hole is the top of a ventilation

shaft.

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Figure 5: Aerial Photo which shows the remains of Persepolis

Source: Wulff (1968)

(e). TILE HOOPS (Figure 6) to support the tunnel are usually piled up near

one of the vertical shafts that lead to the conduit tunnel of a Kareez under

construction in rural Iran. The presence of such elements near a kareez

indicates that the construction crew has encountered a zone of loose

earth and must shore up the tunnel walls.

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Figure 6: Tile hoops

Source: Wulff (1968)

(f). ROW OF CRATERS (Figure 7) each one marking the mouth of a Kareez

ventilation shaft, runs across and plain in western Iran. The walls of the

craters protect the shafts and the tunnel below from erosion damage from

the inflow of water during a heavy desert rainstorm.

Figure 7: Row of craters

Source: Wulff (1968)

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(g). STREAM OF QANAT WATER flows past a wall-enclosed garden in an

Iranian town. The stream first flows through the town and then is diverted

into farm irrigation channels.

6. Conclusion

This study introduced and discussed the architecture of Kareez, a Persians’

masterpiece for transferring water from remote areas to the city. Kareez has

been used for both irrigation and drinking water in many parts of the world for

three millenniums. This has resulted in sustainable architectural system as a

virtue of several advantages such as low evaporation, continuous water

supply in winter and summer and automatic operation to name a few. On

contrary and in spite of all these benefits, it is about to be gradually discarded

in future due to the relatively costly construction and lack of skilled experts

since younger generations would rather to immigrate to bigger cities and are

reluctant to follow the traditional occupations.

To conserve this history-long tradition, it is strongly recommended that

colleges and training centers educate youngsters. Meanwhile authorities e.g.

local governments and museums take appropriate actions to maintain the

kareezes in use.

References

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