According to reports this week, a group of Italian scientists believe they may have found the gates of hell, but we want to know what the hell they’ve actually found.
It’s not something that you stumble across every day, so we thought we’d fill you in on what’s going down at the gates of hell this week.
The gates of hell (there’s actually more than one, like St Patrick’s Purgatory on Station Island in Lough Derg, County Donegal), known as the Ploutonion at Hierapolis or Pluto’s Gate, were said to have been built to please Pluto, the God of the underworld, in the ancient city of Hierapolis, located in modern day Turkey.
The ‘gates’ were actually more like a temple, but sadly that temple was destroyed back in the day (roughly 4AD) by Christian crusaders with further damage being caused by earthquakes in the region over the years.
Until now, the exact location of the gates have been unknown, but a group of Italian scientists headed by Professor Francesco D’Andria claim they’ve finally pinpointed the illustrious gates.
But what makes them so special? Well the Ploutonion at Hierapolis was built on top of a cave that emits a toxic gas and many believed that this was the way into hell because anyone who ventured too close to the cave would die.
Back then they didn’t have all the new fangled science equipment that we have today, so they wouldn’t have known that people were actually dying from an overdose of the toxic gas and not because they got too close to Pluto’s front door.
Apparently, priests would sell small birds and other animals to people outside the cave who wanted to see first hand just how dangerous the gas was. Needless to say, the customer’s curiosity, and the birds, didn’t last very long after venturing close to the cave.
So while the temple has fallen, the cave has been found and it’s sure to bring in a rake of tourists who want to get up close and personal to whatever lies below…