Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/203

 193 History op Art in Antiquity. head, and forbids alike the two modes of burial in common use among the nations of antiquity, e.g. incineration and inhumation. They cannot be burnt, for that is a pollution of fire, the most subtle and ethereal element, and again a symbol of the deity ; or buried, for that is a pollution of earth, the source of all life.' The only way of disposal which avoids the defilement of every element is the consumption of the dead by the livin^r. Dogs and birds of prey shall devour and transform again into flesh the dead bodies. Every traveller who has visited such districts as are inhabited by Parsees, or followers of Mazda, has described the dakmas^ or silent towers," in which the dead are exposed to become a prey to the fowl of the air.' The site of these towers is far removed from the haunts of man, at the summit of some mountain untrodden by human feet ; but in the air iloat rapacious birds, and as soon as a hearse appears in sight they swoop down to perform their ghastly office. In the centre of the area is a pit or well, the sides of which are flagged, as also the ground upon which the corpses are laid. The rcvcting is supposed to isolate the cemetery, so that it may be considered as suspended in mid-air, as not touching the earth upon which it rests. Twice a year the bones, stripped of flesh, are cast in the yawning chasm, and when this is full the tower is abandoned and anotlier precisely simihir is constructed a little way off, which will he used for a shorter or longer space of time, accord- ing to the numbers that will seek here their last resting-place.^ Creeds involving such rites as these were scarcely of a nature to favour the development of funereal architecture. Had the regulations which we find in the Avesta already been accepted in the day of the Achitmenidie and put in force throughout Iran, this chapter would not have been written, for the simple reason that no Persian tombs would have been erected. If, on the contrary, ' For the authors of the Axtsta to allow a corpse to come in contact with either fire or water is a sin not to be atoned for {Fargard, i. 17 ; viii. 74; i. 13). hdght, tridioat either door or window, having at tiie top a nnmber of inm ban which dope inwards. The towers are mounted by means of ladders, and the bodies are placed crossways upon the bars. The vultures and crows which hover about the towers soon strip the flesh from the bones, and the latter then fall Ihroagh to the bottom.'*~Ei». ' Numerous extracts from travellers who have described the funereal rites of the Parsees will be found in Havelaque's work, under the heading V Avista Zoroas/n et le Mazdehma: (8vo, 1880, Maissonneuvo), pp. 469-480. See also J. Darmestetei's Introduction to his transtauon ol the I 'lndidaJ, p. 91, n. 5. Digitized by Google
 * " The Guebres," says Prof. Rawlinson, " construct round towers of considerable