Aliabad Tower

The Aliabad Tower is a 14th-century funerary tower located near the town of Bardaskan in Iran's Razavi Khorasan province. Standing 18 meters tall with a conical brick facade and an outer circumference of 42 meters, it is finished with tiles and plaster in a style characteristic of medieval Iranian memorial architecture. Its conical form consciously echoes Zoroastrian towers of silence — the open-air structures where the dead were exposed to the elements — suggesting a layered spiritual heritage that persisted into Islamic funerary tradition in the region. Listed as a national monument of Iran, the tower survives as a rare intact example of Ilkhanid-era mortuary construction in Khorasan, and rewards visitors with an atmospheric encounter well off the main heritage trail.