A Tower of Silence or dakhmeh is a place on top of a hill where Zoroastrians brought bodies of the deceased for vultures to devour as a funeral formality.
The bodies were placed atop the Tower and so exposed to the sun and birds of prey. The Tower was surrounded by walls built to prevent others from the strangers. According to Zoroastrians beliefs, nature and its four elements of earth, water, air and fire are sacred. Zoroastrian tradition considers a dead body to be unclean and it was the reason it could not be burried.