Cut into a sheer rock face at the base of a mountain at Naqsh-i Rustam are a number of monumental relief carvings of several Sassanian kings. Above them are the tombs of four Achaemenid kings - the most famous being those of Darius 1 (521-485 BC) and Xerxes I (486-465 BC).
Each tomb has a huge facade on which appears the image of a king standing before a fire altar. Representatives of subject nations support a throne platform on which the altar stands. The nations represented on Darius' tomb appear again in an inscription written in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian.
Situated close to the Achaemenid capital city of Persepolis and the Sassanian religious city of Istakhr, Naqsh-i Rustam was a highly venerated national shrine of two great Persian dynasties.
