'Gate to Hell' unearthed among Turkey's ancient ruins

'Gate to Hell' unearthed in Turkey: Italian archaeologists have discovered what they believed to be the remains of an ancient cave that was the entrance to the underworld in Greek and Roman legends.

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.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Gate to Hell' unearthed among Turkey's ancient ruins
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0402/Gate-to-Hell-unearthed-among-Turkey-s-ancient-ruins
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe