Iran | Yazd | Towers of Silence

My main reason for wandering by Yazd was to visit the two Towers of Silence, located on the southern edge of the city. These towers, known in Persian as Dachmas, were places where Zoroastrians disposed of their dead. I have also visited a Tower of Silence in Uzbekistan. Since I was a Zoroastrian before I transmigrated to this current Vale of Tears this subject is of some interest to me. 

When Zoroastrians died their bodies were taken up into a Tower of Silent and exposed to the elements. Vultures and other carrion-eating birds were allowed to strip all of the flesh off the corpses. The bones were then dried and bleached in the sun. In Uzbekistan the bones were places in ossuaries and preserved, but here in Iran the dried bones were placed in a pit in the middle of the Tower of Silent platform where they were allowed to disintegrate into dust. 

 One of the two Towers of Silence near Yazd (click on photos for enlargments)

 Tower of Silence

  Tower of Silence

 Entrance to the Tower of Silence

Interior of the Tower of Silence with pit in the middle

The pit where dried bones were placed

Uzbekistan | Navroz Holiday | Tower of Silence

As I mentioned earlier one reason I came to Bukhara at this time was to observe the Perigee of the Moon. The other was to celebrate the Spring Equinox. As you all know, the Equinox occurred yesterday, March 20. In Bukhara the actual time was 4:02 PM. Navroz, the so-called Persian New Year, begins today, the first full day after the actual Equinox. This is a big holiday in Bukhara. Although it is now celebrated as an Islamic holiday its roots go back to pre-Islamic Zoroastrianism. According to legend Zoroaster himself, founder of Zoroastrianism, introduced the practice of celebrating the Spring Equinox as Navroz. The Equinox is also significant to various shades of Neo-Pagans, Wiccans, and even some Post-Modern Neo-Pantheists (I am looking at you, David Weinberger).

Given its allegedly Zoroastrian origins I thought the best place to observe Navroz was at Chilpak, the so-called Zoroastrian Tower of Silence, located on the banks of the Amu Darya 285 miles northwest of Bukhara. I have been to the Chilpak Tower of Silence before, in 2010, and had planned this trip then. 

I hired a car and proceeded to the site on the afternoon of the 19th. That night my driver and I stayed in a truck stop about five miles away from the Tower of Silence. We hired a private dining room with a low table and mats on the floor so that when we were done eating we could just stretch out and rest for the night. The room was $6 a night per person. The magnificent fish dinner we had, however, set me back $15. That was for one kilo of fish (you order by weight) fresh from the Amu Darya River just a couple of miles away, and all the fixings (bread (naan, actually), pickles, pickled tomatoes, carrot slaw, fresh onions, sour cream, tomato-based fish sauce, etc.) plus of course all the green tea you could drink (I will observe a dignified silence about the quality of the tea; this was, after all, a truck stop). 

The next morning at dawn we proceeded to the Tower of Silence. My driver waited in the car while I climbed to the top to perform the appropriate orisons. 

The Tower of Silence from the distance. The structure at the top is man-made (click on photos for enlargements)

The man-made addition to the summit of the hill. The dating is uncertain, but it could well be over 2000 years old.

 Entryway to the top of the man-made structure

 Cult site at the top of the monument. Zoroastrians brought their dead here and left them so that their bodies could be stripped down to the bone by vultures and the desiccating heat of the sun. The bones were later stored in ossuaries. I shudder to think of the scenes that must have been played out here. 

View from the top with the Amu Darya in the distance