[odds]

Some other pics

A modern day Zoroastrian Temple & Zoroastrian Mobeds "priests", in Tehran, Iran.

Zoroastrians do Not worship the Sun, Fire or any ‘object’. Fire is purely symbolic much like the Cross for Christians or the Star of David or Tree of Life in Judaism.

The Sacred Fire maintained in a metal fire urn is a source of Light, symbolically of God, which they face when praying.

In a couple of more modern, yet key Fire Temples in Iran, the Sacred Fire, in a metal urn, has been kept continuously alight for some 70 yrs. In a very ancient & main Fire Temple in Chak Chak, Yazd Province of Iran, the Sacred Fire in a metal urn, I was told, has been kept alight for nearly a 1000 yrs.

Zoroastrian priests in Kerman province of Iran during a key Zoroastrian holiday (Sadeh) -- the white cloth in front of their mouth & nose is for ‘purity’ purposes. They are usually worn, Only by the Zoroastrian mobeds ‘priests’, when they perform celebratory, religious rituals.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks odds.

In the January 2002 Fortean Times there's an article on the Griffon vulture problem.

Dead Parsees are carried on a simple bier to a ceremonial gate into the private jungle park of banyan and casarina trees in the city's posh Malabar Hill district, wich surrounds the five Towers of Silence... However, with an average of three Parsees dying every day, the six-odd vultures at the towers are overfed and unable to cope, although kites and other birds help out.

All Consuming Faith
by Debora MacKenzie
5 August 2000
New Scientist magazine

Griffon vultures are dying across India, apparently succumbing to a mysterious illness. Wildlife experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the viability of one species in particular. But for India's ancient Parsee religion the vultures' decline poses a more practical problem. Parsees, the religious descendants of the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia, rely on vultures to dispose of their dead, and the bodies are piling up.

[Cronos]

ping to a very informative set of posts by odds