32.2272°N, 54.0086°E.
Mud-brick ice house in the historic oasis town of Meybod, Yazd Province, central Iran. The Meybod Yakhchal sits beside the older Meybod caravanserai and is part of an integrated complex including a qanat-fed water reservoir and a covered bazaar. The dome rises roughly 15 metres above its base and is built of sun-dried mud-brick and the traditional Iranian sarooj mortar that resists both moisture and freezing damage. Long radial shading walls beside the structure cast morning and evening shadow onto shallow channels where water was deliberately frozen during cold winter nights, then cut into blocks and stacked in the deep pit beneath the dome. Insulating layers of straw separated the blocks, and a small north-facing entrance minimised heat exchange. Restoration work in the early 2000s by the Cultural Heritage Organisation of Iran preserved the principal structure.
The system needed no fuel, no machinery, and no continuous attention beyond the annual winter ice cutting.