The Towers of Silence, Yazd

Zoroastrians hold earth, fire and water sacred and will not pollute them with a corpse, so for centuries the dead were carried up to circular stone towers, dakhma, open to the sky, and left for the vultures; the bones were later gathered into a central pit. Two great towers stand on hills outside Yazd in Iran, empty since the practice was ended there in the 1970s. Stark, silent, and reachable on foot. <b>Iran carries strict travel advisories.</b>