Who built the mysterious towers and why it is not yet clear.
The Himalayan Towers are a series of stone structures located mainly in Tibet. Radiocarbon analysis shows that they were built approximately 500 to 1200 years ago. Since the towers are usually located in prosperous villages, it is believed that their main function was to demonstrate the prestige of the family in society. For strength, many of the towers use stellar wall technology as opposed to the strictly rectangular method. The towers can be over 60 meters high.
According to the publication "Science and Life", almost twenty years ago, the French traveler Michel Pessel, known in particular for discovering the sources of the Mekong, penetrated into inaccessible areas of Tibet and the neighboring Chinese province of Sichuan. In the valleys of the Himalayas along the Chinese border, he discovered mysterious stone towers, star-shaped in plan. The Chinese authorities have only recently allowed foreigners to visit these areas. Later, Frederica Darragon joined Peisel's research, traveling to the Himalayas to study the snow leopard population, but forgetting about the original purpose of the trip after seeing these towers.
Some of these high-rise structures, built of stones with almost no use of cement mortar, stand in the middle of villages, others in secluded mountain valleys. In any case, the inhabitants of the Himalayas know nothing about the towers. They cannot answer the questions of who, when, how and why they built them. Some towers are used by the locals as stable for yaks and horses, in others something like an idol has spontaneously appeared - peasants bring clay figures there as sacrifices to powerful spirits. But mostly, the mysterious structures are empty. The wooden stairs, ceilings and rafters that were inside have collapsed or have long gone for firewood and other household needs.
Collecting information about the towers is also complicated by the fact that, as often happens in mountainous areas, the inhabitants of the neighboring valleys most often belong to different peoples and do not understand their languages. In addition, these languages do not have a written language, so one cannot rely on any ancient documentary sources. Some of the local languages disappeared along with their native speakers, who may have known something about the towers.
Traveling in this area is extremely difficult. There are practically no roads. In the summer, during the rainy season, mud and mudflows are not allowed to pass - mud slides descending from the mountains. In winter - deep snow and the danger of avalanches.
Darragon turned to local Buddhist monasteries for help, but the monks did not find any records of the towers in their annals. However, these structures are mentioned in Chinese scientific treatises of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and there are records about them in the travel diaries of some English researchers who wandered here in the 19th century. But nobody studied them in detail.
At least two similar towers are known in neighboring Afghanistan, one of them has long been rebuilt into a mosque.
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Over the past three years, Darragon has taken wood samples from 32 towers, and at her request, a radiocarbon analysis was carried out in a US laboratory to determine the age of organic materials. Most of the towers are from 600 to 700 years old, but one of them, located in the daytime transition from Lhasa, is from 1000 to 1200 years old. It turns out that it was built before the Mongol tribes invaded Tibet around 1240. True, the dating results cannot be considered definitive: perhaps the builders were already using very old wood.
As the researcher suggests, the star-shaped form of the towers gives them seismic resistance. Some towers represent 8-pointed stars in the plan, others 12-pointed. Locals are still building houses with sharp corners to protect them from tremors.
What was the purpose of these structures as high as a modern fifteen-story building? Some historians speak of a cult purpose: the towers can symbolize a rope, which, according to Tibetan legend, connects the earth to the sky. Others say they were defenses or watchtowers to warn villages of nomadic raids. According to one of the Taiwanese historians, who traveled a lot in these places, the towers could serve as communication stations for the optical telegraph. As a rule, each is located so that from its top one can see the tops of two neighboring towers. Signal lights may have been lit on them. According to another version, the towers, which at first had a specific practical purpose, later became, rather, a symbol of status and family wealth. According to one legend, when a son was born in the family of a local ruler,the foundation of the tower was laid, and every year, on his birthday, another floor was added to the structure.
