700 Year Old Underground Cave Homes For Rent in Iran | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

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700 Year Old Underground Cave Homes For Rent in Iran | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World: "Architecture
700 Year Old Hobbit Cave Homes For Rent in Iran
by Yuka Yoneda, 08/03/10
filed under: Architecture


If beachfront property or vacation rentals near prime tourist attractions are no longer cutting it for you, consider checking out a very different type of getaway home. These incredible underground houses carved from natural rock formations local to Kandovan, Iran are available for rent and even for purchase. They might seem like a new gimmick to attract tourists, but these inherently low-energy houses are actually 700 years old!
Photo credit: Streakr



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Located in northeast Iran at the foot of Mount Sahand, the mound-like homes are carved from volcanic rock, meaning that most of the materials needed to construct them were already located on site. Technically, the dwellings aren’t true underground homes since a portion of them sits above ground, but since much of the living space is buried, inhabitants can expect cooler temperatures during the day without having to jack up the air conditioning (and saving a lot of energy).

As you can see, the style of the homes isn’t as primitive as you might think since a lot of additions have been made in the last 700 years. There are modern doors and windows mixed in with more ancient looking carved out rooms and openings. While the area might look like its from prehistoric times, it’s actually a hoppin’ resort locale with hotels, restaurants and a special mineral water famed for its healing properties.

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Photo credit: Streakr



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City of the Ants

Checklist

"Equipment for cave exploring includes: a spare telephone, a telephone trumpet... cords and plumb-line for sounding purposes, a measure, some medicines, a flask of rum...knives, thermometer, barometer, pocket compass, paper squared off for topographical drafting, pencils, provisions, and some incense or Armenian paper, which is burned in case there are dead animals putrefying in the depths" - Édouard-Alfred Martel, 1898

Speaking of Morlocks: The Malta Catacombs

From Drow elves to the devil himself, we rarely imagine good-natured, caring folks when we imagine secret underground races. Generally speaking, if it comes from the ground, we loathe and despise it. Perhaps we're compensating for some internal self-awareness of our more soil-bound genetic ancestors? Whatever the cause, it makes for some dang fine horror. The tales from the Maltese Catacombs may have more to do with superstition and poor history preservation than secret races, but they still get my imagination piqued.

via Listverse

The Malta Catacombs

"In 1902, in the town of Paola on the island of Malta, workers making way for a new housing development stumbled across a vast subterranean complex that dated back to Malta’s prehistoric period, some 3000 years ago. The sight has since became a UNESCO world Heritage site, and was officially named the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum. A more extensive archaeological survey of the site was undertaken, and it became clear that all was not as simple as it seemed. Over 30,000 human skeletons were found in burial chambers dotted across the site, including men, women and children. Many skulls had unusually widened craniums and baffled scientists in terms of ethnic origin. Stories began spreading that it was tangible evidence of a subterranean human species.

"The islands earliest inhabitants engaged in human sacrifice to appease their god of the underworld, who they believed dwelled beneath the island itself. The name they gave to him roughly translates as ‘Serpent’. When Saint Paul was shipwrecked on the island as recorded in the bible, he documented this, and even claimed to have been bitten by the serpent himself. He also spent a great deal of time there converting the people from their primitive worship of a reptilian deity to Catholicism. It is believed, by some scholars, that the human sacrifices were involuntarily cast down into the catacombs, to be devoured by the serpent and prevent the islanders from incurring his wrath.

"Rumors of a cover-up, by the Maltese government and other authorities, are rife with stories including the scrubbing of texts and ancient drawings from the catacomb walls, and the mysterious and sudden death of the sites first head archaeologist. The underground complex still hasn’t been fully explored. A British embassy worker in the 1940’s, gave an account of foraying into the sites lowest room on the last level, after convincing the tour guide to allow her access to an area usually off limits to the public. Upon entering a small portal in the wall she claimed to have seen 20 reptilian beings covered in white hair on a ledge across from her. One raised his palm and subsequently her candle extinguished. She made a quick exit but upon returning some days later she was told that the guide who had shown her the portal had never been employed at the site and no such portal existed."

Supercaves

James M. Tabor on supercaves - the deepest, baddest caves on Earth. Talking about the physiological effects, he notes:

"Another thing is that each human brain has a unique tolerance for darkness. Some individuals reach their limit after a certain number of days or certain number of feet below the surface, and then they have an attack called The Rapture, which is like a panic attack on speed. I’ve interviewed people who’ve experienced it and they say it’s like a panic attack but multiplied a hundred times in intensity..."

Man vs. Dungeon

I've been watching a lot of Bear Grylls lately - yes, I know it's mostly staged, but I still like it. A few episodes I've watched have really given me that patented Old School Dungeoneering feel. He's out there, ostensibly by himself, and what matters most is his scarce equipment and the kinds of things that the 1e Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeoneers Survival Guide were full of. Plus, episodes like the one in Romania are full of the kind of terrain that a good fantasy campaign will thrive on.



In this part of the episode, he has to deal with descending a scree slope (now imagine combat on such a slope, where the enemies are at the top!). Then he goes dungeoneering with an improvised torch. Note that the reason he's using the cave in the first place is to save himself from the time, pain, and effort of dealing with the wilderness! Of course, a fantasy cave would never be quite that uninhabited - we'd always put at least one encounter in it - but I think the idea of having a subterranean cavern (with frigid swim at the end) as a means of travel is actually pretty cool. Remember that one of the original inspiration dungeons, Moria, was traversed by the Fellowship of the Ring for precisely the same reason: it was too hard to go any other way.


Another real danger: claustrophobia and panic. Also, don't forget about "rising floodwaters" - lots of game caverns and dungeons have rivers or waterways or flooded sections, but except for the occasional trap, I don't know that I've ever dealt with rising floodwaters as a dungeon hazard. I rather like the idea. If nothing else, it can be used to cut off a party from retreating to the surface.

There's loads more examples I could pick out, but for now just one more:

Hunting bats for food with a vine racket is a part of the 'Forage' skill that rarely gets described in-game, and maybe that's our loss.

Happy Delving!

Cave Texting and Magic

Consider this item from Engadget:

You know what's really annoying? Teenagers. Even more annoying? Teenagers inventing legitimately useful things and getting awards for it. Meet Alexander Kendrick, the 16-year old inventor of a new low-frequency radio that allows for cave-texting, which isn't some fresh new euphemism, it just means people can finally text while deep underground. How deep, you ask -- well, Alexander's team of intrepid explorers went far enough (946 feet) to record the deepest known digital communication ever in the United States. What you see the young chap holding above is the collapsible radio antenna, though plans are already afoot to ruggedize and miniaturize the equipment to make it more practical for cave explorers and rescuers. Way to go, kid.

Now imagine if you were doing underground work in a world where any magic that existed were somehow atmospheric in nature. Magic would get fainter and fainter and eventually cease to function altogether the deeper you got, unless you had some kind of amplifying device, like this huge collapsible antenna. Beyond a certain point underground, in order for the wizard to be useful in combat, he first has to deploy (and defend) a huge wire cage to draw down magical energies from the distant surface. Afterwords he has to fold it all up again and cart it along, hoping everything still works the next time he has to cast a spell.