The sacred area consists of two terraces built on the slope of the hill, through a cut in the rock on the north side.

Artificial terracing includes one stūpa, surrounded by smaller monuments, and a monastery.

[1] The excavations were initiated by the Italian Archaeological Mission in 1963 and ended in 1982, with a pause between 1966 and 1977.

One of the two cylindrical bodies of the monument was adorned with a frieze figured in green schist while at the four corners of the top of the rectangular body were four columns on a pedestal with a lion figure crouched on top.

[1] The life phase of the sanctuary of Saidu Sharif I was divided by archaeologists in three periods, during which time we pass from a symmetrical arrangement of the monuments (first period, between 25 BCE and the end of the 1st century) to a progressive crowding of the Terrace of the Stupa, followed by an extension of the terrace itself (second and third periods, respectively 2nd–3rd century CE and 4th–5th century CE).