In the autumn of 1998, French explorer Frédérique Darragon was trekking through the deep river valleys of western Sichuan Province, tracking snow leopards, when she encountered something that had eluded sustained Western scholarly attention for centuries: clusters of massive stone towers.

The towers were not unknown. Local Qiang (羌) and Gyalrong Tibetan communities had lived among them for generations. Chinese historians had referenced diaolou (碉楼, literally “watchtower buildings”) since at least the Tang Dynasty. But in the Western geographical imagination, these structures barely registered. These towers are remote, difficult to get to, and overshadowed by the Silk Road, the Great Wall, and the monasteries of central Tibet.

Darragon, Frédérique. 2003. “The Secret Towers of the Himalayas.”