which overlooks the city proper, hosted the summer residence of Persian royalty of the Achaemenid Empire (the period when the Purim story is believed to have happened). Tradition has it that Esther and Mordecai – after spending their final years at the royal resort – were buried in the city, next to one another, with a shrine constructed over their graves. For hundreds of years Jews, Muslims and Christians visited what was commonly regarded as a holy site. Visitors in the 19th century described a prayer area designed to enable worshipers to face both the tombs as well as Jerusalem at the same time. Near the tombs was a wall with space for prayers to be inserted just as is done to this day in the Western Wall.
