Ancient Persian Eco Home Building
These homes in the ancient city of Maymand, Shahr-e Babak, Kerman-Iran were carved into living rocks 12,000 years ago, representing the peaceful coexistence of man and nature. The underground homes protect inhabitants from extreme cold or heat in the desert.
See more photos: Fars News Agency
This is not the first Persian or Iranian green house in Iran. In fact, when I visited it there over the summer to do some architectural studies, I came to discover that over 90% of their homes are green, and sustainable. In those time they did not have the electricity that we have today, therefore, they would go down 10′-0″ under ground to store their food. They also have the water storage places 20′-0″ under ground where it’s this huge room, and you go down there to get your water. Perhaps one of the most interesting cities that I visited was the city of Kashan.
Maymand,Shahre-Babak is a quite interesting and living ancient village in Iran to visit.I worked as a physician in Jamiat Sher o Khurshid Surkh (Red Lion & Sun Society) Shahre-Babak (1974-1979)which is about half an hour drive from Maymand.People are still living there.They are poor but nice and courteous.
I was told that the name “Maymand” was adopted while building and digging in to hard rock, they would drink wine. ‘May’ (or Mai) in persian means Wine where as ‘Man’ means mine hence “May Man d” literally means “Give me my Wine”.I am not sure about the actual population and the number of caves but a rough guess would be approximately 300 or more living souls and 50 or more caves.Many people have now migrated from Maymand to nearby Shahre-Babak and other cities in Iran in search of better life and jobs.There is one tribe by the name of Maymandi still living in Shahre-Babak. Apparently their origin is from Maymand or the surronding area.The housing system is quite unique as each family has a separate cave or the so called house,where living ,cooking is done in the same area.The front of the cave is for cooking the so called kitchen!! where as back of the cave is for living, the bed room! The cooking area is also used for sitting around fire - the sitting room ! after finishing their meal, discussing days activities and plans for the next day etc. During winter Maymand is terribly cold and people are obliged to stay inside their caves to avoid harsh winter.The mountains or rocks in that area are almost devoid of trees but there is good source of bush in the adjacent desert which they use for keeping warm and cooking.With the easy availbility of cheap oil,stoves or Bukharis are used almost everywhere in Iran for cooking and keeping warm and Maymand is no exception.There is worship hall quite sizable amongst those caves which is now used as Mosque for Muslim prayers.Like any other village in Iran there is a headman in Maymand called KADKHUDA.