Archaeologists say they have pinpointed an ancient – and lethal –
cave that was once believed to be the entrance to the underworld.
Working at the World Heritage Site of Hierapolis in southwestern Turkey,
Francesco D'Andria of the Italian University of Salento and his team
found a cave featuring Ionic semi columns with inscriptions dedicated to
Pluto and Kore, the underworld's deities.
D'Andria and his team
also found the remains of a temple, a pool, and multiple steps placed
above the cave, which is said to closely fit the ancient writings on the
site.
"This is an exceptional discovery
as it confirms and clarifies the information we have from the ancient
literary and historic sources,” Alister Filippini, a researcher in Roman
history at the Universities of Palermo, Italy, and Cologne, Germany, told Discovery News.
Writing in the first century BC, the Greek geographer Strabo portrayed the cave as follows: "[T]his space is full of a vapour so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground.
Now to those who approach the handrail anywhere
round the enclosure the air is harmless, since the outside is free from
that vapour in calm weather, but any animal that passes inside meets
instant death.
At any rate, bulls that are led into it fall and
are dragged out dead; and I threw in sparrows and they immediately
breathed their last and fell. ”
Strabo's deadly "vapour" –
actually CO2 gas – remains in the cave, said D'Andria, who presented his
findings at a recent conference on Italian archaeology in Istanbul.
"We
could see the cave's lethal properties during the excavation. Several
birds died as they tried to get close to the warm opening, instantly
killed by the carbon dioxide fumes,” he said.
In the ancient
world, the gate served as a destination for sacred rites. Small birds
were given to pilgrims to test the deadly effects of the cave, while
hallucinated priests sacrificed bulls to Pluto. The ceremony included
leading the animals into the cave, and dragging them out dead.
According
to Filippini, the cave survived until the 6th century AD, when the
Christians were believed to have abolished it. A series of earthquakes
may have put a complete end to so-called Gate to Hell.
But the
fiery underworld, it seems, has more than one entrance. In Turkmenistan,
a huge flaming crater in the Karakum Desert is known as the "door to
hell."
The
fiery pit, which measures some 60 meters wide and 20 meters deep, was
created in 1971, when Soviet geologists drilling for oil and natural gas
accidentally exposed a huge methane reserve. They decided to burn the
gas off, and it has been burning continuously since then.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
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