A team of Iranian archaeologists during the excavations in the city of Nahavand, West-Central province of Mazandaran, have discovered new evidence that there was a mysterious temple Laodicea.
On the opening tells the Tehran Times. This year, archaeologists carried out for the fifth season of excavations in the area of Dhahran city Nahavand. They are looking for so-called Laodicean Church is the ancient sanctuary, is described in historical sources, but has long been considered lost.
A few years ago, here were discovered the ruins. Since then, the archaeologists dug a total of 12 trenches, which allowed to determine the size of the ancient building. It turned out that it covered a large area of 12 hectares. This suggests that the building, whose ruins managed to dig up was monumental.
The researchers found the remains of the giant columns of the basement and pottery Dating back to the reign of the Seleucid dynasty. It was founded Selevkos, one of the closest associates of Alexander the great. Accordingly, the temple was built in the Greek style.
Archaeologists believe that the dig will fail, as its Central part, probably, is now under the many houses built by local residents over the years. However, what was found, is sufficient for identification of the temple.
Search for it began in 1943, when archeologists discovered this ancient plaque size 85×36 cm with the inscription from the 30 lines, made in the Greek language. It was a call to the people of Nahavand to obey the laws of the ruler. In this inscription and was referred to the Laodicean Church, which was built by the Seleucid king who ruled Asia Minor, Antiochus III the Great (223-187 years BC) for his wife Queen Laodicea.
Scientists believe that this temple they could find. By the way, the Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state that existed from 312 to 63 BC It was founded by Seleucus I Nikator after the death of Alexander the Great and the partition of the Macedonian Empire. Seleucus received Babylonia in 321 BC, and then expanded their holdings to include most of the middle Eastern territories of Alexander.
At its peak the Seleucid Empire included Central Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia and what is now Kuwait, Afghanistan and partly Pakistan and Turkmenistan.
