Tower of Silence, Yazd

The Tower of Silence

The Towers of Silence are funerary structures of the Zoroastrian religion, which are stalked by vultures which devour the remains of human bodies exposed outdoors. In the Iranian Zoroastrian tradition, the towers of silence are built on top of hills or small mountains in desert areas distant from populated centers.

The Zoroastrians, over the years, have had an unusual way of disposing of their dead. The corpse were not buried or incinerated. Instead, the bodies were left on top of tall towers known as "Dakhmas," or "Towers of Silence," in which they were exposed to the elements and were consumed by scavengers such as vultures, kites and crows.

This macabre funeral practice arose from the belief that burial and cremation are considered a polluting act for nature and the elements that form the nature, including soil, something that Zoroastrians try to protect. This reverence has led some scholars to describe Zoroastrianism as the "first ecological religion in the world. The Zoroastrian practice of exposing the dead, known as "dakhmenashini," was first documented in the mid-fifth century BC by Herodotus, but the use of towers of Silence came much later, in the ninth century.

The Towers of Silence have a flat roof divided into three concentric rings, in which the naked bodies are left: the outer ring for men, the central one for women and the innermost one for children. Once the birds eat all the exposed meat and bones they have been bleached by the sun and the wind, the bones themselves are collected and accumulate in an ossuary pit in the center of the tower, to subsequently add lime and allow Disintegrate gradually. The whole process takes almost a year.

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This ancient practice survived among Zoroastrians in Iran until the Dakhmas were declared dangerous to health. They became illegal in the 1970s, although the ritual is still practiced in India by the Parsi tribes, which constitute the largest population of Zoroaster in the world.

The rapid urbanization and social pressure have made the use of dakhmas a very debated topic even among the Persian community. Although it must be said that the greatest threat to the "dakhmenashini" has not come from public health officials or protests, but from the lack of vultures.

Vultures play an important role in the disintegration of corpses. These animals have been steadily declining since the 1990s. In 2008, their number dropped by an astonishing 99%, until it was discovered that a drug was administered to cattle was fatal to Vultures when they feed on corpses.

In the tradition of the Persian Zoroastrians, the location of the towers of silence are flattened, is surrounded by walls and only a few and chosen carriers of the bodies have access. The towers of silence in Iran are found in Yazd and Kerman, belonging to the Iranian Zoroastrians. At the beginning of the 20th century, followers of that Zoroastrianism abandoned this tradition and began to bury their dead in cemeteries, as the traditional way seems strange for other people.

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