In the past, people commonly believed that death led to the afterlife. Death was a ritual that people had to go through in order to get ready to live in another world. Due to this, most people thought that the idea of heaven or hell was something to both respect and fear. For example, Hades was feared because it was a place and a god where only the worst people went. In the 21st century, people may be smarter, but there's no denying that there are places on earth that could be considered gateways to hell if there really was one.
The Necromanteion of Ephyra, an ancient Greek temple to Hades and Persephone used for necromancy (talking to the dead), is considered to be one of the most well-known gateways to hell. The temple is near three of the five rivers that flow through Hades. Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus all mean "river of woe" (river of wailing). Chiron was the ferryman in charge of taking souls across the river Acheron on his boat. Once across the river, people could communicate with the dead at the Necromanteion of Ephyra. During excavations at the temple's site, wheels, ratchets, and other things were discovered.
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Conquistadors from Spain called the Masaya volcano in Nicaragua "La Boca del Inferno," which means "the mouth of hell." Even though the people who lived there didn't believe this, the Spanish conquistadors put a cross on the crater's edge to get rid of the devil. St. Gregory said that all volcanoes were gateways to hell. Locals would often sacrifice children and women in the lava to stop droughts, but the Spanish thought it was the work of the devil. Finally, the smell of sulphur and the heat of the lava were enough to convince the Spanish that it really was a doorway to hell.
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One of the entrances to hell is a burning crater in Turkmenistan, the origins of which are still unknown. One idea is that a group of Soviet explorers found a hole that was letting out poisonous gas. They tried to burn it down by setting it on fire, but instead, the crater remained alight in an unending blaze. It has been burning ever since and is now a tourist spot called the Darwaza crater. Strangely the place is really popular with spiders, which often fall into the fire.
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Alepotrypa means "foxhole" in Greek and is a huge system of caves in Greece. It is the place where the story of Hades began. A lake inside the cave is thought to be the passageway where the dead goes to the next world. The cave had been forgotten for a long time until a man on a fox hunt found it again. Rituals and burials took place in the cave 600 years ago. This is shown by the artifacts and pottery that were found inside. There were also 170 bodies found in the cave.
Actun Tunichil Muknal is a cave in Belize that is considered to be the doorway to the Mayan underworld, which they called Xibalba. Inside, people were sacrificed by having their heads cracked open and being left where they fell. To get to the cave, you have to swim through water up to your neck. The cave is full of mineral deposits because of the water. This has had the amazing effect of gluing the victims' skeletons to the cave's floor and turning them into sparkling crystals. One of these crystals is called the "crystal maiden."
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Even though it is called "hells of Beppu," this is a popular and beautiful place known for its natural beauty. On the hills of Beppu in Oita, Japan, there are several hot springs and streams of boiling water. The hells of Beppu have everything from a beautiful sea hell with blue water to a blood pond hell called Chinoike Jigoku that has red water. Unfortunately, even though the place is beautiful, it is now known as a place where people were tortured and killed.
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Not the radioactive element, but a cave in the city of Hierapolis, which is now the Turkish city of Pamukkale. People also think of the cave as the way to Hades or Pluto's gate. Locals found a shrine to Pluto at the site, which they called a "demon's hole."
It was recently discovered near the ruins of an Apollo temple. During the excavation, the plutonium was found on top of a natural opening that lets carbon dioxide out. When researchers were digging, they saw that birds that got too close to the cave suffocated and died.
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According to Greek mythology, Hades pulled Persephone down to the underworld while she was playing by Lake Pergusa. She was the daughter of the harvest goddess Ceres. Ceres was angry and wouldn't let anything grow until they came to an agreement that Persephone would spend six months above ground, which became spring and summer, and six months in Hades, which became fall and winter.
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On Ming Mountain in China, there is a group of temples and shrines that are all about the afterlife. When Yin and Wang went to the mountain to learn about Taoism, the place became known as a gateway to hell. Even though they achieved wisdom, the combination of their names- Yinwang, which means "king of hell," led to the construction of the city of ghosts atop the mountain.
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A sibyl was a prophetess or clairvoyant woman who could foretell the future. In Virgil's Latin epic The Aeneid, Aeneas goes to the Sibyl of Cumae's cave to find her. She told him that he needed to go to the underworld if he wanted to build Rome into a great country. So, Aeneas is taken to the underworld, where he meets the ghosts of many famous people who have died. The Aeneid says that a sibyl speaks through her cave, which has a thousand mouths and makes her voice louder. In 1932, a cave called the Cave of the Sibyl of Cumae was found. It did have more than one entrance and is considered one of the many gateways of hell around the world.
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