 Oxen and sheep were held here to be sacrificed for the Urartian gods, according to the inscriptions discovered at the location.A stereotyped trilingual inscription of Xerxes the Great from the 5th century BC is inscribed upon a smoothed section of the rock face, some 20 meters (60 feet) above the ground near the fortress.The niche was originally carved out by Xerxes' father King Darius, but left the surface blank.