The calls Towers of Silence from the city of Yazd, in Iran, are the scene of a tradition over 3.000 years old that has survived to this day although it is about to disappear. Until relatively recently, the corpses of the deceased were still laid upon them to be consumed by the sun and desert vultures.
This is how the ancient Zoroastrian tradition has it: when a body ceases to live it runs the risk of being contaminated by demons and losing its purity. To avoid it, Zoroaster and his followers purified the corpse by exposing it to the elements and local birds on top of some flat-topped towers in the desert called dakhmas.
Yazd's Towers of Silence form three concentric circles. In the outer ring the corpses of the men are deposited, in the middle the women and children in the inner circle. They remain there until the bones are totally white and bare. Afterwards, ossuaries are kept inside the towers.
These dakhmas are not unique to Iran. It is possible to find them also in the outskirts of Bombay (India) and in other locations in the Middle East, where Zoroastrianism spread and took root. However, in the 70s this practice was banned in Iran, although the rites are still practiced in a hidden way. Although the towers are no longer used for these ceremonies, they have remained a curious tourist attraction to visit in the country.
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