AB-ANBAR, THE ANCIENT UNDERGROUND WATER HOUSES OF KHORASAN

Through out history, the people of Khorasan have battled the dryness by innovations to preserve every drop of water that lands from the rare clouds, or from a stream flowing out of distant springs. Water is precious and held with highest respect, whether stored for drinking at an Ab-Anbar, or for washing and farming at the Houz in the middle of their oasis homes and orchards, or sourced at a Qanat spring or Jooy under ground. How it is that drinking water as cold as a mountain fall is found in desert of Khorasan? Ab-Anbar is an ancient means of water preservation and cooling through an underground building structure. These underground structures have been present in Khorasan and other desert provinces of Iran as public or private water storage facilities, widely used before the installation of public plumbing systems in the late 1950s. Although today many of these structures are still functional most have been protected by the Historical Heritage Society, for restoration or viewing by the public as museums. Khorasan natural dry climate and the massive surrounding deserts have been a breeding ground for many designs of Ab-Anbars. Today the existing number of such facilities stands in the province of Khorasan. Usually these structures are built in populated areas, also there are some forms of such structures on old trade routes and roadways leading to and from populated towns. The proposed paper is to be considered the history of Ab-Anbars in Khorasan as well as other aspects such as types, components, construction methods and materials together with water supply and withdrawal systems.