I was reading about funerary traditions and ran into the Towers of Silence, the way the Zoroastrians dealt with their dead. Wiki says:

Towers of Silence are circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead. There is no standard technical name for such a construction. The common dakhma or dokhma (from Middle Persian dakhmag) originally denoted any place for the dead. Similarly, in the medieval texts of Zoroastrian tradition, the word astodan appears, but which today denotes an ossuary. In the Iranian provinces of Yazd and Kerman, the technical term is deme or dema. In India, the term doongerwadi came into use after a tower was constructed on a hill of that name. The word dagdah appears in the texts of both India and Iran, but in 20th century India signified the lowest grade of temple fire (cf. Fire temple).

The term "Tower of Silence" is a neologism attributed to one Robert Murphy, who in 1832 was a translator of the British colonial government in India. It is not the literal meaning of "Avestan (sic) dakhma" as suggested by the Encyclopædia Britannica. While the stem dakhma- does exist in the Avestan language, its meaning there is not conclusively established. The contexts indicate a negative connotation and that it does not signify a construction of any kind.

Totally out of our western context. Fascinating to me.