Tower of Silence Built by the Parsees

“A tower, generally built about 25 feet high, on which the Parsees expose the bodies of their dead to be stripped of flesh by vultures. These towers are usually so arranged that the denuded bones fall through a grating into a pit, whence they are removed for burial.” —Whitney, 1889

These towers were built by the Zoroastrians, of which the Parsees are one group. This image shows a tower with some bones and carrion surrounding it and hills in the background.

Keywords

India, death, vulture, tower, religion, vultures, carrion, scavenge, Dead, towers, Parsi, Parsees, Zoroastrians, ex-carnation, scavenging, silence

Galleries

Iran, India, Miscellaneous Middle East Illustrations, Towers and Spires, Death Care

Source

William Dwight Whitney, PhD, LLD The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language (New York, NY: The Century Co., 1895) 5627

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