Varzaneh Pigeon towers
What is a pigeon tower?
When people see this construction, many of them think of a military fortification. But dovecote (or Pigeon tower) is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pigeonholes for the birds to nest.
Why did people build them?
Pigeons were important for their eggs, flesh, and dungs. Most importantly, farmers used pigeon dungs to fertilize the fields. But now every farmer uses chemical fertilizer to take the most advantage of his farm.
It is also said that people used pigeon’s egg to make their babies start talking faster. For example, when a kid was old enough to talk but he/she wasn’t still able to talk, the parents give him/her pigeon’s egg to eat to help the process of talking.
Also since many robbers were stealing the crops, the pigeon tower was a safe place to store them.
How does it look like inside?
There are many nests inside the pigeon tower so the pigeon couples could live safely and protect their babies until they grow up. When the kids get old enough they go to a new nest and no longer live with their parents. Varzaneh pigeon tower contains 8000 nest which means 16000 pigeons could live at the same time.
Why is it a little inclined?
To avoid falling a pigeon’s dung to the nest under it, people built the tower inclined so it falls directly to the bottom.
What is the white line around the tower?
There were always some snakes around which could easily climb up the tower and get inside and eat pigeons. So people learned they should paint a wide sleepy line around the tower, so the snakes were no longer able to climb up.
To protect the pigeons from attacking birds, people built the entrance holes so small that only pigeons were able to go through and not any bigger animal.
To protect, even more, people used to hang wolf’s or hyena’s head close to the tower so the attacking birds like eagles were afraid to come close.
Where can we see them?
In central Iran (Esfahan, Varzaneh, Meybod, Yazd and …) you can see a lot of them near the farms. Jean Chardin the great French traveler has mentioned in his book that there were over 3000 pigeon towers around Esfahan region.
