ATDDTA (8) Towers of Silence (209:26)

[bekah]

The corpse on an upright piece of wood is a theme of Christianity.

Bekah

At 6:51 AM -0700 5/2/07, Keith wrote:
>While I can find no references to hanging corpses on telegraph poles 
>or placing them atop adobe brick towers (perhaps an allusion to the 
>towered Mormon temples http://tinyurl.com/2ture6 ) in 
>turn-of-the-century Utah, the Persian "Towers of Silence" serve the 
>stated purpose:
>
>"Zoroastrians consider a dead body - in addition to cut hair and 
>nail-parings - to be nasu, unclean. According to tradition, the 
>purpose of exposure is to preclude the pollution of earth or fire 
>(see Zam and Atar respectively). Corpses are therefore placed atop a 
>tower and so exposed to the sun and to birds of prey. Bodies are 
>arranged in three rings: men around the outside, women in the second 
>circle, and children in the innermost ring. The ritual precinct may 
>only be entered by a special class of pallbearers. Once the bones 
>have been bleached by the sun and wind, which can take as long as a 
>year, they are collected in an ossuary pit at the center of the 
>tower and/or are eventually washed out to sea."
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Silence