It sounds like something out of a horror movie. But Italian scientists say that the “Gate to Hell” is the real deal – poisonous vapours and all.
The announcement of the finding of the ruins of Pluto’s Gate (Plutonium in Latin) at an archeology conference in Turkey last month, was recently reported by Discovery News. Francesco D’Andria, a professor of classic archaeology at the University of Salento in Italy, led the research team.
D’Andria told Discovery News he used ancient mythology as his guide to locate the legendary portal to the underworld.
“We found the Plutonium by reconstructing the route of a thermal spring. Indeed, Pamukkale springs, which produce the famous white travertine terraces originate from this cave,’’ said D’Andria.
Scribes such as Cicero and the Greek geographer Strabo mentioned the gate to hell as located at the ancient site in Turkey, noted Discovery, but nobody had been able to find it until now.
About 2 000 years ago, Strabo wrote: “This space is full of a vapour so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Any animal that passes inside meets instant death. I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell.”
“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,” D’Andria said. – Sapa-AP