Knowing that he and his fighters would be impaled if captured, Sinđelić detonated a powder magazine within the rebel entrenchment, killing himself, his subordinates and the encroaching Ottoman soldiers.

In 1948, Skull Tower and the chapel enclosing it were declared Cultural Monuments of Exceptional Importance and came under the protection of the Socialist Republic of Serbia.

[4] The rebels were plagued by lack of coordination, largely due to the rivalry between commanders Miloje Petrović and Petar Dobrnjac.

[3] The numerically superior Ottomans lost thousands of soldiers in a number of failed attacks against the rebels, but eventually overwhelmed the Serbian lines.

Knowing that he and his men would be impaled if captured, Sinđelić fired at his entrenchment's gun powder magazine, setting off a massive explosion.

[5][6][7][8] After the battle, the governor of the Rumelia Eyalet, Hurshid Pasha, ordered that the heads of Sinđelić and his men be skinned, stuffed and sent to the Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II.

[7] The Ottoman Empire was known to create tower structures from the skulls of rebel fighters in order to elicit terror among its opponents.

[11] "My eyes and my heart greeted the remains of those brave men whose cut-off heads made the cornerstone of the independence of their homeland," de Lamartine later wrote.

[10] He realized that the structure no longer served as an effective means of discouraging potential rebels and only fostered resentment against the Ottomans, reminding locals of the empire's cruelty.

[10] After the Ottomans withdrew from Niš in 1878, the Royal Serbian Army scoured the town and its surroundings in search of the missing skulls.

In 1948, Skull Tower and the chapel were declared Cultural Monuments of Exceptional Importance and came under the protection of the Socialist Republic of Serbia.

[18] It "continues to serve as an important heritage site for Serbian national identity," the political scientist Bilgesu Sümer writes.

[16] The Serbian poet Milan Đorđević [sr] considers Skull Tower to be emblematic of what he terms "Balkan horror".