Sardāb (Yazd cellar)

How it is built

Materials

• Earth and masonry — The sources describe below-ground rooms within vernacular houses; they do not establish one universal construction material or wall system for sardābs.

1. In Iranian vernacular houses, a sardāb is a deep cellar; it is distinct from a zir-zamin, a larger basement that could also serve as a family living space during hot hours. Architectural research describes sardābs as full basements commonly about 4–5 metres deep. The cited sources disagree about whether they had small grilled openings to the courtyard or were entirely below ground, so neither arrangement should be presented as universal.
2. Foruzanmehr’s review reports that some older, elite houses in Yazd had underground rooms reaching about 6.5 metres below the courtyard. These could have access to water and were described as refrigeration spaces for perishable food. The article also summarizes sardābs as summer stores for perishable foods, sometimes linked to a qanat and ventilated by a wind-catcher. Those features are reported possibilities, not a required package: the sources disagree about ventilation and do not supply one standard plan.
3. A 2024 measured documentation of the Kolahdoozha House, now the Yazd Water Museum, identifies a sardāb and payāb level in its architectural section. It documents a named Yazd house, but does not establish that all sardābs had the same arrangement or that this specific room stored food. The older-house examples in the review support the food-storage function; the measured museum drawing supports the presence of this below-ground level at that site.
4. The evidence supports a cool cellar for food storage, not an Iranian icehouse. Encyclopaedia Iranica explains that a yakhchāl’s primary store was solid ice, not food. This page therefore keeps the sardāb’s food-storage use separate and does not infer a recipe, exact temperature, date of origin, or universal connection to qanat water.

Places