Labor minister visits UNESCO-listed qanat in northeast Iran

TEHRAN – Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ahmad Meydari visited the UNESCO-listed Qasabeh qanat in Gonabad, northeast Iran, on Friday. The ancient aqueduct is widely considered as the deepest known qanat in the world.

By Maryam Rostami

Before refrigerators, Iran had Yakhchals: Where did summer ice come from?

GONABAD – Have you ever paused, while sipping a chilled sharbat or juice with ice cubes floating inside, or enjoying an iced tea or iced coffee, to wonder how people kept their drinks and food cool before modern refrigerators and ice makers existed? Did they have access to cold water during the scorching days of summer? To find the answers, one can look to the heart of Iran’s desert cities—places where architectural ingenuity and human adaptation to nature gave rise to remarkable structures known as yakhchals, or icehouses.

Mend pottery, narrative of 5,000 years of art, culture, life in desert

TEHRAN--Pottery artifacts from the village of Mend with geometric and plant motifs, discovered in excavations conducted around Gonabad, indicate the advanced civilization of people of this region about 5,000 years ago.

Bulgur-Pazan ritual, still alive in memory of southern Khorasan people

TEHRAN--In the heart of the southern Khorasan desert, a centuries-old ritual continues to thrive in the collective memory of local communities.

2,500-year-old qanat still flowing despite drought threats

TEHRAN--Qasabeh qanat (an ancient underground water network) in Gonabad, Khorasan Razavi province, has been less affected by drought, given its access to deep underground water resources, said Hamdireza Mahmoudi, the director of the World Site of Gonabad’s Qasabeh Qanat.