Gates of hell

The gates of hell are various places on the surface of the world that have acquired a legendary reputation for being entrances to the underworld. Often they are found in regions of unusual geological activity, particularly volcanic areas, or sometimes at lakes, caves, or mountains.

This article is about supposed portals to the underworld from the surface of the earth. For other uses, see Gates of Hell (disambiguation).

Fengdu Ghost City

Gates in the Greco-Roman world

Legends from both ancient Greece and Rome record stories of mortals who entered or were abducted into the netherworld through such gates. Aeneas visited the underworld, entering through a cave at the edge of Lake Avernus on the Bay of Naples.[1] Hercules entered the Underworld from this same spot.

In the middle of the Roman Forum is another entrance, Lacus Curtius, where according to legend, a Roman soldier, named Curtius, bravely rode his horse into the entrance in a successful effort to close it, although both he and his horse perished in the deed.[2]

Lerna Lake was one of the entrances to the Underworld.[3][4]

Odysseus visited the Underworld, entering through river Acheron in northwest Greece.[5]

Orpheus traveled to the Greek underworld in search of Eurydice by entering a cave at Taenarum or Cape Tenaron on the southern tip of the Peloponnese.[6]

Pluto's Gate, Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin, in modern-day Turkey unearthed by Italian archaeologists is said to be the entry gate to the Underworld; it is linked to the Greco-Roman mythology and tradition.[7]

Rivers Cocytus, Lethe, Phlegethon and Styx were also entrances to the Underworld.

The god Hades kidnapped the goddess Persephone from a field in Sicily and led her to the Underworld through a cleft in the earth so he could marry her.[8]

Medieval gates

Into the medieval period, Mount Etna on Sicily was considered to be an entryway to hell.[1]

The gates of hell were commonly depicted as jaws, forming the Hellmouth, which was simultaneously the entrance to hell and the mouth of a huge monster.

Art

Auguste Rodin was commissioned to make a pair of bronze doors to symbolize the gates of hell. He received the commission on August 20, 1880 for a new art museum in Paris, to exhibit at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, which ultimately did not open; however in 1900, some of them were part of his first solo exhibition in Paris. Rodin spent seven years making the doors, with over 200 figures appearing on it. He was first inspired by Dante's Inferno but focused more on universal human emotions. During his lifetime the model was never cast and it was first cast in 1925. The Gates of Hell was described as one of the defining works of Rodin.[9][10] Having hoped to exhibit his Gates at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, but probably too busy to finish them, the sculptor stopped working on them circa 1890.

  • Rodin's sculpture at Stanford University, California
  • Simon Marmion (Flemish, active 1450–1489) – The Gates of Hell and Lucifer – Google Art Project
  • Orcus mouth in the Gardens of Bomarzo, c.1560

Other gates
The Door to Hell, a burning natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan
  • In China, Fengdu has a long history in the Taoist tradition of being a portal to hell.[11]

Religious contexts

In 1878, Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage delivered a widely reprinted sermon titled "The Gates of Hell" at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, based on the scripture Matthew 16:18, message by Jesus to Peter "...on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." Talmage's gates were metaphorical, including "infamous literature," "dissolute dance," "indiscreet apparel," and "alcoholic beverage".[19][20]

In ancient Indian Hindu tradition the Orion constellation where the vernal equinox is stated to occur, the Milky Way and the Canis were considered to form the border between Devaloka (heaven) and Yamaloka (hell); the Milky Way forming the dividing river between heaven and hell and the Canis Major and Canis Minor representing dogs that guarded the Gates of Hell.[21]

  • The 1959 movie Five Gates to Hell was written and directed by James Clavell, and was an action-adventure story set in French Indochina.[22]
  • In the 2009 young adult novel The Gates by John Connolly, the title refers to actual Gates of Hell, which are opened by the accidental coincidence of an amateur occult ritual on Halloween and a stray particle from the Large Hadron Collider.[23]
  • In the 2005 young adult novel The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, the main characters (two demigods and one satyr) found the entrance to a Greek version of the Underworld in a recording studio in Los Angeles.[24]
  • In August 2010, the History Channel premiered a show entitled "The Gates of Hell" (History Specials: Gates of Hell (Season 1, Episode 105), which visited caves and volcanoes in Nicaragua, Belize, Greece, Iceland, Ireland and Ethiopia, to examine the origins of these myths. It featured archaeologists, scholars, explorers and others working in this field.[25]
  • The September 2012 edition of Weird NJ magazine describes a large tunnel, referred to by urban legends as "The Gates of Hell". It is a storm drain in Clifton, New Jersey.[26]
  • In the 2014 film As Above, So Below, set in the depths of the Catacombs of Paris, has an inscription marking the entrance to hell.[27]
  • The February 2016 edition of Weird Ohio magazine describes a similar sewer system referred to as "The Gates of Hell" or the "Blood Bowl" in the High Street area of Columbus, Ohio.[28]
gollark: For all the talk of how nebulae each have unique patterns, their patterns look *really* similar.
gollark: I have 1000 invisinebulae. They come in *more than 4 colours*.
gollark: You only see the many prizes you have if you've seen a winning raffle thingy?
gollark: There are, I believe, about as many prizes provided per month as new users.
gollark: *stares longingly at raffle page again*

See also

References
  1. Classen, Albrecht (August 31, 2015). Handbook of Medieval Culture. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 664. ISBN 978-3-11-026730-3.
  2. The Marvels of Rome (New York: Italica Press, 1986).
  3. "Lerna". www.greekmythology.com. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  4. "Trump and the Many Headed Monsters". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  5. Wexler, Philip (May 22, 2014). History of Toxicology and Environmental Health: Toxicology in Antiquity. Academic Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-12-800463-0.
  6. "Archeologists Discover 'Gates of Hell' in Turkey". JEWSNEWS. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  7. "Pluto's 'Gate to Hell' uncovered in Turkey". NBC News. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  8. "Homework Page Eight". mythmaniacs.com. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  9. Museum, Rodin. "Rodin Museum : The Collection". www.rodinmuseum.org. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  10. Albert Alhadeff, "Rodin: A Self-Portrait in the Gates of Hell" Art Bulletin 48(3/4)(September–December 1966): 393–395. doi: 10.2307/3048395
  11. "Rebuilding a Ghost Town". www.eeo.com.cn. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
  12. "The Seven Gates of Hell". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
  13. Thrum, Thomas (1907). Hawaiian Folk Tales. A. C. McClurg. p. 12.
  14. "Mount Osore: The Dark Side of the River". Japan Talk. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  15. Fackler, Martin (August 20, 2009). "As Japan's Mediums Die, Ancient Tradition Fades". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  16. Kapadia, Harish (March 2002). High Himalaya Unknown Valleys. Indus Publishing. p. 307. ISBN 978-81-7387-117-7. 'Gateway of darkness or hell' (Murgo, Mur: hell, go: gate).
  17. "Lessons from the Gate of Hell". The Hindu. March 21, 2014. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  18. "Hells Gate National Park - Kenya Wildlife Service". Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  19. "The Gates of Hell; Talmage on Both Sides of Them" The Times (October 28, 1878): 1. via Newspapers.com
  20. Gordon Severance; Diana Severance (October 22, 2012). Against the Gates of Hell: The Life & Times of Henry Perry, A Christian Missionary in a Moslem World. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 2–. ISBN 978-1-62032-525-4.
  21. Joydeep Sen (July 22, 2015). Astronomy in India, 1784–1876. Routledge. pp. 160–. ISBN 978-1-317-31843-9.
  22. "'Five Gates to Hell' Tonight's Plaza Movie" The Paris News (November 8, 1959): 25. via Newspapers.com
  23. Denise Hamilton, "The Gates by John Connolly; Demons Pour Forth from Hell and Nearly Ruin Everything in this YA Novel" Los Angeles Times (October 31, 2009).
  24. Riordan, Rich (June 14, 2005). The Lightning Thief. Hyperion/Miramax Kid. p. 384. ISBN 0-7868-5629-7.
  25. "Tuesday's TV Highlights: 'Gates of Hell' the History Channel". LA Times Blogs – Show Tracker. August 16, 2010. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
  26. "The Gates of Hell". Weird NJ. September 2012. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  27. Park, Andie. "As Above, So Below should've stayed below". thetartan.org. The Tartan. Retrieved March 27, 2016.
  28. "The Gates of Hell". Weird OH. February 2016. Retrieved February 21, 2016.

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Further reading
  • Robert Lima, "The Mouth of Hell: Damnation on the Stage of the Middle Ages" in Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theatre and Drama (University Press of Kentucky 2005). ISBN 978-0-8131-2362-2

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