DAKHMA. The Iranian term dakhma, which probably originally signified "tomb," seems to be derived from the Indo-European root *dhṃbh, "bury" (Hoffmann, 1965), and not from dag, "burn," as some scholars have proposed. It is occasionally used in the Avesta with a negative meaning, insofar as the burial of bodies was condemned: the funeral rites adopted by the Zoroastrian community (and which were already practiced in priestly circles in the Achaemenid period, as we know from Herodotus) were designed to avoid scrupulously any contamination of the earth, fire, and water and can be traced to earlier practices widespread among the nomads of Central Asia. These—as we learn from the Vendidad—prescribed that corpses, considered impure, be exposed to vultures so that the bones could be cleansed of flesh. Once they were purified of humors and putrefying flesh, the bones were placed in special ossuaries. According to Strabo, the...