The fabled gate to the underworld, discovered in Turkey, is
referred to in legend as Pluto’s Gate.
The ancient cave was commemorated in Greco-Roman mythology and
traditions as the doorway to the ‘underworld.’
The team behind the dig located the portal recently in the ancient
Phrygian city of Hierapolis –referred to as the entryway to Hell by
Cicero and Greek geographer Strabo.
As the Greek philosopher explained in his writing, the entrance of
the cave spews noxious vapors that kill anything in their
path.
"Any animal that passes inside meets instant death," he
wrote.
"I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and
fell."
“This space is full of a vapor so misty and dense that one can
scarcely see the ground," he added.
Francesco D’Andria, a professor of classic archaeology at the
University of Salento, led the team that found the cave and
explained that the group made their landmark discovery by
reconstructing the route of a thermal spring.
Upon excavation of the site, archeologists also found Ionic
semi-columns that had inscriptions of dedication to the deities of
the underworld, Pluto and Kore.
Priests, who would have been hallucinating under the influence of
the fumes, would sacrifice bulls to Pluto by leading the animals
into the toxic cave, before dragging them out dead, the
archaeologist explained.
“We could see the cave’s lethal properties during the excavation,”
D’Andria said.
“Several birds died as they tried to get close to the arm opening,
instantly killed by the carbon dioxide fumes.”
The cave is believed to have existed until the Christian's
destroyed it in the 6th century AD, aided by
earthquakes.
“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
said.
