10 ms·
Qanat
- ashalhashim 3y ago“Cecil - No civilization in history has ever considered ‘chief hydrological engineer’ a calling.”
- gitaarik 3y agoAm I the only one that didn't understand how this is suppose to work from reading the first paragrah on the wiki article? My first question right away was: how do they get the water from an "underground aquaduct" to "the surface"? To me it seems the water would have to travel up. But by doing some more research, I understand the water well is higher up in a mountain, and the "underground aquaduct" is traveling down the mountain, and reaches the "surface" when it comes out of the side of the mountain. But the way it is described in the first paragraph of the article didn't make that clear to me. It amazes me that apparently other people don't have this question when reading about an "underground aquaduct" that brings water to the "surface". I would rather describe it as an underground aquaduct inside a mountain, guiding the mountain water to an edge of the mountain where it exits.
- strken 3y agoI didn't realise the water table at higher elevations could be above the ground level of nearby lower elevation land, so I had the same issue. When I first read the article I thought a qanat was a type of stepwell[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwell
- Zanius 3y agoThe water table typically rises and falls with elevation. Depends on the kind of rock/soil in the area.
- strken 3y agoI knew that was true across long distances. I didn't realise the water table could be high above sea level at point A, lower at point B, and yet points A and B could still be close enough to each other to manually dig a tunnel between them.
- mercenario 3y agoHad the exact same question and though the same thing as you ("I can't believe the author didn't think this was an important thing to make clear in the first paragraph") Didn't need much research because the picture later in the article made it clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat#/media/File:Qanat_cross_section.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat#/media/File:Qanat_cross_... Actually this has been my usual experience with wikipedia, the first paragraphs never make the subject clear to me, I always end up with a lot of questions.
- fjfaase 3y agoIn 1993, I visted Turpan in Xinjiang and saw the exit of one of the many qanats there. Turpan is in a depression that is more than 100 meters below sealevel. The depression is rather flat, so you barely notice that you are that low. It is also a rather dry place with about 15mm of rainfall per year and very cold winters and very hot in the summer. Not so strange, as it is very far from any ocean. Turpan is famous for its grapes. During the summer they let grapes grow over streets and path ways to benefit from the shadow.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chis 3y agoCrucial scrabble word
- kristianp 3y agoI came by to say this. You'd want to know about "qi" and "qat" too of course.
- hunter2_ 3y agoAs someone entirely unfamiliar with the word until now, the first pronunciation inside my head, though immediately deemed wrong of course, was /CUE-ah-not/.
- userbinator 3y agoThat's not surprising, since Qanon (what came to mind when I saw this word) is pronounced with the leading CUE as well.
- eganist 3y agoRelated ancient Persian technology: the yakhchal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhch%C4%81l) (a.k.a the ice pit). We still use the same word in farsi for refrigerators today.
- pvg 3y agoWe still use half of the same word in English! 'yakh' and 'ice' are cognates. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DB%8C%D8%AE https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DB%8C%D8%AE
- hunter2_ 3y agoI love learning cognates that don't really look it. Acadian and Cajun is another favorite, although I'm not sure if it counts if they're both used in English.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoTry saying "Acadian" quickly, and you can see pretty easily how it might elide into "Cajun". Uh-cay-dee-yan Cay-dee-yan Cage-dee-yan Cay-jee-yan Cay-jun Speech gets lazier with repetition. Ask any native of New Orleans how their city's name is pronounced: the majority will say something like "Noo-ahh-lins" or even just "Nah'lins".
- inductive_magic 3y agoWonderful video which is somewhat related: https://youtu.be/twAP3buj9Og?si=muhCC08RsFzofObB https://youtu.be/twAP3buj9Og?si=muhCC08RsFzofObB
- adhdbrain 3y agoThis was an incredible video. Thanks for sharing!
- archon1410 3y agoIt seems the video is making rounds yet again—it was also recommended to me by the algorithm a few days ago.
- guwop 3y agoamazing vid!
- pciexpgpu 3y agoThis entire thread is fantastic and a great learning opportunity. Sent me spiraling through Wikipedia pages. This video is really great too!
- adriand 3y agoAgreed. Reading/watching this stuff reminded me of my experience visiting Morocco a few years ago. We travelled through the Atlas mountains and into the desert regions bordering the Sahara and then into the Sahara itself. I was struck by how everywhere we went, you could see signs of how people had tried to extract water from what appeared to be an utterly arid environment, whereas back home in Ontario, everywhere you look there is infrastructure designed to manage large amounts of it. Our biggest water-related problem is that we often have too much of it, a problem that seemed scarcely imaginable over there.
- extensis 3y agoVideo from Asianometry about Iran's water problems, mentioning quanat: https://youtu.be/watch?v=aaEhNTpvEN8 https://youtu.be/watch?v=aaEhNTpvEN8
- xeonmc 3y agoWhat a coincidence, recently saw it on Asianometry's video about the Iran water crisis. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaEhNTpvEN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaEhNTpvEN8
- brabel 3y ago> By 400 BCE, Persian engineers had mastered the technique of storing ice in the middle of summer in the desert. The ingenuity of ancient people cannot be overstated. Some of us think that before around 1800, everyone still lived in primitive conditions... I guess this is an awesome counterpoint.
- cardiffspaceman 3y agoBeer was made in ancient Mesopotamia and they didn’t kill themselves by methanol poisoning, so we can go back pretty far.
- ben_w 3y agoNow I'm wondering if the sum total of all inventions prior to 1800 is more or less than the total since 2000, to pick a random year with no particular reason for the choice. And how would you weight the importance of the inventions? I think ice is nice — but autoclaves, antibiotics, and anaesthesia during surgery are much more important.
- hnbad 3y ago"Ice is nice" is severely understating the importance of refrigeration. The ability to preserve fresh foods is easily up there with penicilin.
- woodruffw 3y agoThese kinds of comparisons are category errors: you don't get to autoclaves and antibiotics without the civilization-level changes that get you irrigation and ice in summer.
- zabzonk 3y agoalso mentioned in "Dune", the novel, along with other arabic/persian words.
- globular-toast 3y agoI somehow managed to read most of Children of Dune without looking up what a qanat is. Since then I've remembered it specifically for use in Scrabble, but over 20 years later I've still yet to get the opportunity to use it (I don't play Scrabble much any more).
- dr_dshiv 3y agoThe tunnel of Eupalinos is also an interesting reference. From before 550bc on the island of Samos, it was an irrigation tunnel through a mountain. They started digging on both sides and managed to meet in the middle just 60cm off. Pythagoras was just a boy at that time, but I like to think he was influenced.
- miohtama 3y agoQanat will be history soon. Iran, like West USA, has exploited available water resources and there is simply no water left. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity_in_Iran https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity_in_Iran
- aixhole 3y agoThe qanat system was effectively destroyed by the Mongols when they invaded Iran centuries ago. That contributed to the desertification of Iran and its overall decline.
- krisoft 3y agoHmm. How did the mongols do that? Qanat’s are not magical water making devices, they are just a long tunnel which leads the water already in the ground to the surface. Even if the Mongols were actively demolishing the tunnels the water is still there underground. Maybe there is some second order effect I am not aware of, but this statement sounds fishy to me.
- aixhole 3y agoIran was basically a throphy throne for Turkic strongmen to roleplay Persian King of kings for most of its post-Islam history. I assume the collapse of a strong nation state post mongols destroyed any hope of a top level national reconstruction effort. Water was sourced from north and flowed down south. It's like saying there we still have coal when someone has come and ripped up the entire railway network. More aptly, think Christmas lights in series. Now imagine the lights are little oasis towns, and far flung. Water stops flowing one day and it never comes back. That's likely what happened. (Also remember that Iran is ~1/3 the size of US and the dry parts are in the interior.)
- Karrot_Kream 3y agoMongols did this throughout the Islamicate world and did it to South Asia also. They destroyed tons of existing infrastructure and by the time civilizations here started recovering, they had to deal with an ascendant Western Europe.
- spandextwins 3y ago[dead]
- startages 3y agoQanat is an Arabic word which translates to "Canal", but it's a little more traditional and made to transfer water for long distances between a source of water and an agriculture field for irrigation.
- geraneum 3y agoA little side note, the original name of Qanat in Persian is “Kariz”.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoCurious, seems to me that they all come from the same Akkadian (ancient Semitic language) root: "From earlier form کاهریز (/ kāhrēz /) or کهریز (/ kahrēz /), from Middle Persian [Book Pahlavi needed] (ksryc / kahrēz /) (compare Manichaean Middle Persian 𐫞𐫍𐫡𐫏𐫉 (qhryz / kahrēz /, “qanat”), Parthian 𐫞𐫍𐫡𐫏𐫝 (qhryc / kahrēz /, “qanat”) and Khunsari کیریز (/ kēirīz) /), or compound of کاه (kâh, “straw”) + ریز (rêz, “to throw”). They used to throw straws in qanats' wells to see how rapid the movement of water is for repair purposes." Vs Latin "canal": "For cannālis, from canna (“reed, cane”), from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”).* And the Greek in turn comes, apparently, from Akkadian (Semitic) "qanûm" "reed". And so I'd guess the Arabic 'qanat' either from either Akkadian or from its own Semitic vocabulary or was borrowed back in from Greek. Nifty.
- dalbasal 3y agoHow sloped are water tables, typically?
- simbolit 3y agoRough answer: as sloped as the terrain on top. Better answer: it depends. Best answer: find your local equivalent of https://www3.twdb.texas.gov/apps/WaterDataInteractive/GroundwaterDataViewer/?map=gwdb https://www3.twdb.texas.gov/apps/WaterDataInteractive/Ground...
- SoapSeller 3y agoAlso see Seville attempt to cool public spaces using modern variant: https://cartujaqanat.com/ https://cartujaqanat.com/
- aidenn0 3y agoI first encountered this concept in a Sierra Adventure game: https://youtu.be/rd-epKNOo0U?t=3049 https://youtu.be/rd-epKNOo0U?t=3049
- nagonago 3y agoA nearby shopping center used to be called Qanat until it got bought out and renamed to the very generic (Corporation) Square a few years ago. Everyone still just calls it Qanat because it's such a cool word, with an interesting history!
- simbolit 3y agoI guess it is called "NAME OF THE CORPORATION square", but, well, isn't "corporation square" a great name for a mall!
- saagarjha 3y agoThe Wikipedia article mentions this part twice but it doesn’t seem to explain why: > The system has the advantage of being resistant to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods, and to deliberate destruction in war. Like, it’s a tunnel underground; it sure seems like an earthquake might misalign or fill it so that it becomes unusable. Or in wartime I’d dump sewage down one of the shafts to ruin the water supply…what are the protections against this?
- saiya-jin 3y agoWater pipes with 0 leeway for movement or elongation/shortening in the violently shaking ground or in the walls cracking seems less resilient, at least in some cases, than these 'mud' tunnels.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoA lot of it might be hearsay or exaggerations.
- geraneum 3y agoObviously, compared to other means of transporting water at that time! For example an “open” river could have been more vulnerable in certain circumstances. Strong earthquakes may affect the path of the rivers as well. But I see your point in that, resistance to earthquakes or adversities are not what Qanat/Kariz were famous for (as far as we know).
- zeristor 3y agoAqueducts would be far more vulnerable.
- ricksunny 3y agoTenerife also has 'galerias' that are dug horizontally into the mountain to obtain water. (They were dug much later thsn the qanats to my understanding) https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galer%C3%ADa_filtrante https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galer%C3%ADa_filtrante
- la64710 3y agoLooks like this has been posted multiple times in the past.. I wonder why. Is there a story here ? https://hn.algolia.com/?q=qanat https://hn.algolia.com/?q=qanat
- aetch 3y agoEasy points
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoSome more discussion previously 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11719441
- smsm42 3y agoVery useful word if you play Words with friends
- zeristor 3y agoI’m guessing that the use of pump driven wells chasing the falling water table in the US means building these today isn’t viable, which is a shame. Were the Persians smart enough to consider ground water recharge to feed the aquifers?
- robocat 3y agoGood image showing the rows of excavation holes and tailings: https://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/qanatsfiraun13-1.jpg https://www.ancientpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/qana...