Archaeologists have discovered remains of ancient air conditioning system in a 7th century structure on Failaka, a Kuwaiti island in the Persian Gulf.
It is a unique so-called windcatch-tower, utilising an ingenious interior cooling system based on the flow of air, caught by openings in the tower superstructure.
Ancient Air Conditioning systems like Windcatchers work by evaporative cooling and such earliest ones date back to the 19th Dynasty of Pharaonic Egypt (1300 BCE).
Fhe Failaka tower enhanced the cooling power of the windcatcher by passing the air over the below-ground water canals into the living spaces of the palace, lowering the temperature of the air dramatically.
First settlement in Failaka was around 2000 BCE by Mesopotamians from Ur who ran a trading concern from the island.
By 1800 BCE, the Mesopotamians had either left or been escorted off the island by the Dilmun civilization, which at the height of its power encompassed modern-day Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and coastal Saudi Arabia.
During the 7th century BCE, Mesopotamians under Nebuchadnezzar II returned to Failaka and remained there until the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire after the death of the last king, Nabonidus.
Then the Greeks took a turn. Alexander the Great and his successors controlled the island from the 4th to the 1st century BCE.
The Kuwaiti-Slovak Archaeological team found a palatial building dating the 7th-8th century CE, that was previously unknown. Its architecture of stone masonry foundations topped with mud brick walls is relatively well preserved and its dimensions far eclipse those of the more than 140 settlement structures that have been found at Al-Qusur since it was first excavated in the 1970s.
Also it had air conditioning.
Artifacts found in the palace include ceramic and glass vessels, stucco and tile stamps with Christian symbols and Byzantine coins.