“Hell on Earth” may not just be an exaggeration.
Scattered concerning the globe are various locations that scientists imagine might be entrances to the underworld, starting from a volcanic “hellhole” in Iceland to an underwater cave stuffed with victims of human sacrifice.
For our purposes, the underworld will encompass quite a lot of different theologies, though the lion’s share holds significance in Christianity.
Better of all, you’ll be able to “go to hell” and visit the five so-called portals beyond purgatory yourself.
Gehenna
Few places seem as synonymous with the netherworld than Gehenna, which is the Greek word for “hell” within the Recent Testament.
The locale — whose name is derived from the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, meaning “Valley of Hinnom” — was an actual valley outside the partitions of old Jerusalem where ancient Israelites would burn children in sacrifice to the Ammonite god Moloch.
In reality, the image of immolating bodies inspired the concept of “hellfire” in Jewish and Christian theology.
This way of corpse disposal could have contributed to the place’s hellish connotations.
“In the traditional world (whether Greek, Roman or Jewish), the worst punishment an individual could experience after death was to be denied an honest burial,” Recent Testament scholar Bart Ehrman previously wrote in Time. “Jesus developed this view right into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the dominion can be unceremoniously tossed into probably the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet.”
When the Bible was translated for other languages, Gehenna was swapped out for the word “hell,” meaning this real location is as near hell on Earth as one might get.
Hell, Michigan — eat your heart out.
Hierapolis
Hierapolis is a portal to the afterlife in each the figurative and literal sense — in that it might probably actually kill individuals who enter.
Situated in modern-day Turkey, the traditional Greek metropolis has a passageway that leads right into a cave-like grotto in an open arena, the Day by day Mail reported.
Priests would carry sacrificial animals down through the door, referred to as Pluto’s Gate, whereupon the beasts would die, in accordance with ancient storytellers.
“[The] space is stuffed with a cloudy and dark vapor, so dense that the underside can scarcely be discerned … Animals which enter … die immediately,” said ancient philosopher Strabo some 2,000 years ago. “Even bulls, when brought inside it, fall down and are taken out dead. We have now ourselves thrown in sparrows, which immediately fell down lifeless.”
Sometimes even the priests would follow their fate or experience extreme hallucinations, in accordance with Fodor’s Travel.
This so-called toxic death trap gave the impression of a myth until 2013, when archaeologists discovered the carved arch opening within the Temple of Pluto, with fumes spouting up from the thermal springs below like a subterranean gas chamber.
“These carbon dioxide vapors can kill birds and other small animals that get too near this ‘Satanic temple,’ making it considered one of the scariest gates of hell on Earth,” reads the travel guide.
Hekla
Those driving the gravel road to this Icelandic volcano enterprise on the highway to hell.
Medieval Christians claimed that the snow-capped mountain, which stands nearly 4,900 feet, is considered one of the gates to the nether realm. The Icelandic word “Hekla” refers to a brief, hooded cloak, which could reflect the spooky clouds that perpetually shroud its summit.
Volcanos are sometimes seen as real-life hellholes attributable to the molten rock that burbles up beneath their surface.
People’s fears were seemingly confirmed within the yr 1104 when Hekla erupted with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 5 — the identical rating as Mount St. Helens’ deadly 1980 eruption.
The Eleventh-century explosion was so bombastic that greater than half of Iceland was pummeled by rock and ash.
In 1180, a Cistercian monk named Herbert de Clairvaux declared Hekla more deadly than Mount Etna in Italy.
“The renowned fiery cauldron of Sicily, which men call hell’s chimney … that cauldron is affirmed to be like a small furnace in comparison with this enormous inferno,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Sixteenth-century German scholar Caspar Peucer claimed that the gates to hell might be present in “the bottomless abyss of Hekla Fell.”
Actun Tunichil Muknal
The road to perdition isn’t restricted to the Old World. Working example: Belize’s Actun Tunichil Muknal — literally the “Cave of the Stone Sepulcher” — which extends greater than three miles underground.
While that might sound “underworldly” enough by itself, the subterranean labyrinth is riddled with the stays of youngsters as young as 4, a few of whom have calcified like props in an “Indiana Jones” movie.
Archaeologists imagine that the cenote — or pit — was revered as an entrance to Xibalba, the “heavy metal” version of hell in Mayan theology, in accordance with Fodor’s.
The after-living quarters were described as a terrifying labyrinth stuffed with rivers of blood and scorpions, with demonic beings lurking around every corner.
The decedents, meanwhile, were thought to have been sacrificed through the tenth century, at a time when apocalyptic natural disasters corresponding to droughts were accelerating the decline of the Mayan Empire.
They believed they may appease Xibalba’s rulers in order that they would stop the dry spells.
“Amongst the Maya, we hardly see any – almost no – human sacrifice until the late classic period [the 8th and 9th Centuries CE],” Holley Moyes, a professor and caves expert from the University of California, told the BBC. “And I feel they begin doing it because they’re in the midst of a drought, and so they are attempting to up the ante.”
St. Patrick’s Purgatory
Now called Station Island, the enduring pilgrimage site in northwest Ireland was once considered the sting of the known world.
Based on a Latin text written circa 1184, Christ showed Saint Patrick this pit to purgatory so he could use it as a cautionary tale to persuade the stubborn Irish to convert, in accordance with Smithsonian.
Anyone who descended into this hellhole of fireplace and demons would witness the implications of shunning Christianity firsthand.
Accounts of St. Patrick’s purgatory differ, but it surely was reportedly a modest-sized cave where smoke was traditionally inhaled to facilitate a spiritual awakening.
The story was instrumental in shifting Western European perceptions of purgatory, transforming it from a mere idea right into a real physical location.
“Hell on Earth” may not just be an exaggeration.
Scattered concerning the globe are various locations that scientists imagine might be entrances to the underworld, starting from a volcanic “hellhole” in Iceland to an underwater cave stuffed with victims of human sacrifice.
For our purposes, the underworld will encompass quite a lot of different theologies, though the lion’s share holds significance in Christianity.
Better of all, you’ll be able to “go to hell” and visit the five so-called portals beyond purgatory yourself.
Gehenna
Few places seem as synonymous with the netherworld than Gehenna, which is the Greek word for “hell” within the Recent Testament.
The locale — whose name is derived from the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, meaning “Valley of Hinnom” — was an actual valley outside the partitions of old Jerusalem where ancient Israelites would burn children in sacrifice to the Ammonite god Moloch.
In reality, the image of immolating bodies inspired the concept of “hellfire” in Jewish and Christian theology.
This way of corpse disposal could have contributed to the place’s hellish connotations.
“In the traditional world (whether Greek, Roman or Jewish), the worst punishment an individual could experience after death was to be denied an honest burial,” Recent Testament scholar Bart Ehrman previously wrote in Time. “Jesus developed this view right into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the dominion can be unceremoniously tossed into probably the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet.”
When the Bible was translated for other languages, Gehenna was swapped out for the word “hell,” meaning this real location is as near hell on Earth as one might get.
Hell, Michigan — eat your heart out.
Hierapolis
Hierapolis is a portal to the afterlife in each the figurative and literal sense — in that it might probably actually kill individuals who enter.
Situated in modern-day Turkey, the traditional Greek metropolis has a passageway that leads right into a cave-like grotto in an open arena, the Day by day Mail reported.
Priests would carry sacrificial animals down through the door, referred to as Pluto’s Gate, whereupon the beasts would die, in accordance with ancient storytellers.
“[The] space is stuffed with a cloudy and dark vapor, so dense that the underside can scarcely be discerned … Animals which enter … die immediately,” said ancient philosopher Strabo some 2,000 years ago. “Even bulls, when brought inside it, fall down and are taken out dead. We have now ourselves thrown in sparrows, which immediately fell down lifeless.”
Sometimes even the priests would follow their fate or experience extreme hallucinations, in accordance with Fodor’s Travel.
This so-called toxic death trap gave the impression of a myth until 2013, when archaeologists discovered the carved arch opening within the Temple of Pluto, with fumes spouting up from the thermal springs below like a subterranean gas chamber.
“These carbon dioxide vapors can kill birds and other small animals that get too near this ‘Satanic temple,’ making it considered one of the scariest gates of hell on Earth,” reads the travel guide.
Hekla
Those driving the gravel road to this Icelandic volcano enterprise on the highway to hell.
Medieval Christians claimed that the snow-capped mountain, which stands nearly 4,900 feet, is considered one of the gates to the nether realm. The Icelandic word “Hekla” refers to a brief, hooded cloak, which could reflect the spooky clouds that perpetually shroud its summit.
Volcanos are sometimes seen as real-life hellholes attributable to the molten rock that burbles up beneath their surface.
People’s fears were seemingly confirmed within the yr 1104 when Hekla erupted with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 5 — the identical rating as Mount St. Helens’ deadly 1980 eruption.
The Eleventh-century explosion was so bombastic that greater than half of Iceland was pummeled by rock and ash.
In 1180, a Cistercian monk named Herbert de Clairvaux declared Hekla more deadly than Mount Etna in Italy.
“The renowned fiery cauldron of Sicily, which men call hell’s chimney … that cauldron is affirmed to be like a small furnace in comparison with this enormous inferno,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Sixteenth-century German scholar Caspar Peucer claimed that the gates to hell might be present in “the bottomless abyss of Hekla Fell.”
Actun Tunichil Muknal
The road to perdition isn’t restricted to the Old World. Working example: Belize’s Actun Tunichil Muknal — literally the “Cave of the Stone Sepulcher” — which extends greater than three miles underground.
While that might sound “underworldly” enough by itself, the subterranean labyrinth is riddled with the stays of youngsters as young as 4, a few of whom have calcified like props in an “Indiana Jones” movie.
Archaeologists imagine that the cenote — or pit — was revered as an entrance to Xibalba, the “heavy metal” version of hell in Mayan theology, in accordance with Fodor’s.
The after-living quarters were described as a terrifying labyrinth stuffed with rivers of blood and scorpions, with demonic beings lurking around every corner.
The decedents, meanwhile, were thought to have been sacrificed through the tenth century, at a time when apocalyptic natural disasters corresponding to droughts were accelerating the decline of the Mayan Empire.
They believed they may appease Xibalba’s rulers in order that they would stop the dry spells.
“Amongst the Maya, we hardly see any – almost no – human sacrifice until the late classic period [the 8th and 9th Centuries CE],” Holley Moyes, a professor and caves expert from the University of California, told the BBC. “And I feel they begin doing it because they’re in the midst of a drought, and so they are attempting to up the ante.”
St. Patrick’s Purgatory
Now called Station Island, the enduring pilgrimage site in northwest Ireland was once considered the sting of the known world.
Based on a Latin text written circa 1184, Christ showed Saint Patrick this pit to purgatory so he could use it as a cautionary tale to persuade the stubborn Irish to convert, in accordance with Smithsonian.
Anyone who descended into this hellhole of fireplace and demons would witness the implications of shunning Christianity firsthand.
Accounts of St. Patrick’s purgatory differ, but it surely was reportedly a modest-sized cave where smoke was traditionally inhaled to facilitate a spiritual awakening.
The story was instrumental in shifting Western European perceptions of purgatory, transforming it from a mere idea right into a real physical location.
