Mid-Islamic Zoroastrian Burial Customs in Iran in the Light of Excavations at Tepe Qaleh Khalachan, Tafresh, Iran

Unlike Sasanian period, we haven’t got more information about Zoroastrian burial customs in Islamic period. The early Islamic funerary inscriptions give some information about burial practices in this period. The Yazdgerdi calendar dates on these epitaphs provide an absolute date for them in the first three centuries of the Islamic period. Until recent excavation at Tepeh Qaleh Khalachan weren’t any evidences of Zoroastrian burial customs in Middle Islamic period. In Archaeological excavation of Tepeh Qaleh Khalachan a roofed tower of silence was discovered. Model of this structure before have been found in Bandyian in Dargaz from Sasanian period. In this paper tried to answer three questions about structure and burial custom. What is exactly the feature of Zoroastrian burial custom in Middle Islamic in Iran? What are mutual and different features between Tepeh Qaleh Khalachan and Bandyian towers of silence? What is precisely important of this roofed tower of silence in archaeological studies of Islamic period? Because some mutual features has been supposed influence of Bandyian on Tepeh Qlaeh Khalachan tower of silence. Besides, Zoroastrian mirror communities had Some influences on burial customs. Methodology of present paper is analytical descriptive. Archaeological data of Tepeh Qlaeh Khalachan and Bandyin have been investigated and at the same time, library resources about Zoroastrian burial customs, towers of silence and Zoroastrian communities in Islamic period have been studied. This paper showed tower of silence was a burial custom in Middle Islamic in Iran and had some mutual roots with Bandyian ones. Best example of these mutual features is a roof on these two towers of silence. What it shows roofed towers of silence continued to Middle Islamic period in Iran. Hence it is plausible if someone supposes towers of silence in Yazd, Kerman and Rayy are belonging to the second generation of towers of silence in Iran what is dating to after Middle Islamic period.