TEHRAN -- The Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) plans to buy a number of houses in a region of Nahavand beneath which archaeologists believe the ancient Greek Laodicea Temple lies buried, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday.

Last June, a team of Iranian archaeologists led by Mehdi Rahbar began searching for the temple in Nahavand, which is 40 kilometers southeast of Malayer in Hamedan Province.

The locals built many residential units on the site over the years, so the CHTO must buy the houses in order to facilitate the excavation of the area.

“The team’s archaeological studies determined that only 12 residences must be bought in the first phase,” the director of the Laodicea Archaeological Study said.

The upcoming excavations will help determine exactly how many other houses must be bought to make the archaeological project possible, Ali Torabi added.

In 1943, archaeologists discovered an 85x36 centimeter ancient inscription of 30 lines written in Greek calling on the people of Nahavand to obey the laws of the government. The inscription indicated the existence of the Laodicea Temple, which had been built by the Seleucid king who ruled Asia Minor, Antiochus III the Great (223-187 BC), for his wife Queen Laodicea.

Two other inscriptions as well as four bronze statuettes have been unearthed at the site, which are on display in the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. A number of capitals and bases of the temple’s columns excavated over the years are currently being used as decorations in Nahavand’s Hajian Bazaar and several other parts of the city.

Antiochus was the most distinguished of the Seleucids. Having made vassal states out of Parthia in present-day northeastern Iran and Bactria (an ancient country in Central Asia), he warred successfully against the Egyptian king Ptolemy V and in 198 BC obtained possession of all of Palestine and Lebanon.

He later became involved in a conflict with the Romans, who defeated him at Thermopylae in 191 BC and at Magnesia (now Manisa, Turkey) in 190 BC. As the price of peace, he was forced to surrender all his dominions west of the Taurus Mountains and to pay costly tribute. Antiochus, who early in his reign had restored the Seleucid Empire, finally forfeited its influence in the eastern Mediterranean by his failure to recognize the rising power of Rome.