Eli5: How did people make and keep ice in medieval times, and how do we manufacture ice cubes now ?
In: Technology
“Manufacture” is a generous. Ice was harvested.
In desert regions, the nights get bone cold when the air is dry. You want ice? Leave a thin layer of water out over night, and collect before sunrise.
In regions with a winter, or atop large mountains, you’d harvest ice from frozen lakes. That opening scene from the movie Frozen? Accurate depiction of the ice trade.
After ice was harvested, people could store it in various types of ‘ice houses’. They’re basically buildings made out of an insulating material to keep the inside cold. They could get very advanced too.
Persian Yakhchals for instance were basically giant trench freezers. Walls were 2 meters of water proof mortar. It’s a massive pit in the ground with a massive spiralling roof designed to suck up hot air, and multiple vent holes abusing physics to suck in cooled air.
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