Original headline: Asian towers' purpose remains a mystery
Martine "Frederique" Darragon fell under the spell of an elusive phenomenon scattered across the foothills of the Himalayas. Old stone towers, some vaguely star-shaped and some more than 100 feet tall, became a near-obsession.
Darragon told Smithsonian magazine's Richard Stone that when she asked local residents about the towers -- Who built them? When? Why? -- nobody seemed to have a clue. What she had stumbled on was rare indeed: a riddle in plain sight.
Over five years, she journeyed nine times to Sichuan Province in western China, and Tibet, seeing nearly 200 of the towers. She photographed and measured them, climbed into them when possible and carved off bits of wooden beams for analysis.
Local monks told her they'd found no mention of the structures in centuries-old monastery documents. Still, she did find a few references to the towers in some Chinese annals and in the diaries of 19th-century Western travelers to the region.
From 2000 to 2003, Darragon shipped pieces of wood from 32 towers to a laboratory in Miami for radiocarbon dating. Most of the wood samples she had tested are several hundred years old, and the towers from which they came are presumably the same age.
But one structure in Kongpo, Tibet, proved much older. It likely was built 1,000 to 1,200 years ago. The dating method isn't definitive, and it's possible that the wood used by some tower builders was already very old, in which case the structures may be younger.
Local ignorance of the towers' original purpose may trace to the area's history and geography. A millennium ago, the place was dominated by mountain tribes that, over the centuries, have maintained isolation.
"People in one valley usually cannot understand what is said in the next valley," Darragon told Stone. She wonders if knowledge of the towers that was once passed down orally may have been lost as dialects evolved or disappeared.
Darragon was especially intrigued by the more than 40 roughly star-shaped towers she encountered. Some have eight points, others 12, but both configurations are rare.
Darragon speculates that the star shape makes the Chinese structures less susceptible to tremors: "All the people I asked in the villages said the towers resist earthquakes."
The question remains: Why were they built? One idea is that they served a religious function, perhaps representing the "dmu" cord that, according to Tibetan legend, connects heaven and Earth.
Alternatively, some scholars suggest the structures were watchtowers or forts.
"The towers were built for defense," said Marielle Prins, a linguist with the Southwest Institute for Nationalities in Chengdu, China. "Most of them are from the Jinchuan Wars."
Eric Mortensen, a Tibet scholar at National Taiwan University, said the structures were "likely used as signal towers." He bases that conclusion on their locations, which generally provide a line of sight from one another.
But some scholars suggest that the towers are not so mysterious after all.
"If there's any mystery surrounding them, it's no doubt partly a product of Western mythology around anything Tibetan and the fact that, until recently, the Chinese forbade access to the region," said Alex Gardner, a Buddhism specialist at the University of Michigan.
"I don't see how they could be called 'unknown' when they are visible for miles, and the region is crisscrossed with trading routes and now automobile roads."
Meanwhile, the mysteries of the towers continue to occupy Darragon's mind, and her sleuthing will continue. The self-described free spirit has purchased a home in a valley in the Kham region of China, settling down next door to a tower
