For one reason or another, there are a lot of locations on Earth that could be likened to the entrance to hell.
The door to your high school, for example, or maybe the driveway up to your ex-boyfriend’s house?
When it comes to the ‘actual’ location there’s a lot to be debated – the first being whether hell actually exists in the first place.
But for those who believe in the prospect, there are a few places that have been raised as possibilities – so much so that researchers, scholars and religious figures have stepped in to share their thoughts.
Hierapolis, Turkey
Now known as an ancient Roman city, Hierapolis was once a bustling region in which archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a church, baths, and a gymnasium.
There is one feature that sets Hierapolis apart, however, and it was discovered in 2011.
Located in an open arena, the feature is a small door which leads into a cave-like grotto. According to accounts written by the ancient philosopher Strabo, spectators in the arena would watch as animals would die outside the entrance to the grotto.
Strabo claimed that the space filled with a ‘dark vapor’, and that animals would ‘die instantly’. Sounds like a pretty good contender for the entrance to hell, right?
As it turns out, there is a reason for these bizarre deaths.
When looking into Hierapolis scientists found that the entrance to the mysterious door sits on top of an active volcanic fault line, and the geological activity caused thick clouds of CO2 to rise up out of the cave.
In 2018, researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen explained: “Astonishingly, these vapors are still emitted in concentrations that nowadays kill insects, birds, and mammals.
“They reach concentrations during the night that would easily kill even a human being within a minute.”
Hekla, Iceland
A much more menacing sight than a little door, this volcanic peak was first likened to hell in 1120, when a poem by the monk Benedeit described it as the eternal prison of Judas in a reference to the ninth lowest circle of hell.
A few years earlier 1104, the volcano had experienced an eruption, believed to have been a category five out of eight on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, which covered 21,000 square miles in rock and ash and spewed toxic gases into the air.
Years later, Cistercian monk Herbert de Clairvaux made reference to Italy’s Mount Etna and noted how people at the time called Etna ‘Hell’s chimney’.
By comparison, the monk claimed: “That cauldron is affirmed to be like a small furnace compared to this enormous inferno.”
Another link between Hekla and hell came when the 16th-century German scholar Caspar Peucer claimed the gates to hell were located in ‘the bottomless abyss of Hekla Fell’.
Gehenna, Jerusalem
It might sound bizarre that hell could be found so close to Jesus’ home, but this particular location is believed to have been raised by the big man himself.
In the earliest version of his ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus was said to have warned anyone who sinned that they would be cast into Gehenna – a deep gorge located to the southwest of Jerusalem.
The Bible indicates that ancient Israelites practised child sacrifice at the gorge, prompting the belief that it may have been cursed by God. As the Sermon was translated into English, the word ‘Gehenna’ became ‘hell’ – painting the location as hell on Earth.
Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explained more about this thought process in an article in Time, writing: “In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial.
“Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet.”
However, Jesus didn’t say anything about souls being tortured in Gehenna – they would simply cease to exist.
Actun Tunichil Muknal, Belize
Translated to the ‘Cave of the Stone Sepulcher’ in English, the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave can be followed more than three miles beneath the surface of the Earth, leaning into the often-held idea that hell is beneath us.
The cave is believed to have been used during the Mayan Empire, and inside archaeologists found the remains of individuals who appeared to have been bludgeoned to death, potentially as a sacrifice.
The discoveries prompted researchers to speculate that the cave could have been considered an entrance to the Mayan underworld, known as Xibalba.
St Patrick’s Purgatory, Ireland
That’s right, even the quaint country of Ireland isn’t safe!
The last of our locations that’s been linked to hell was once believed by medieval people to be the edge of the world, and was named after St Patrick after he allegedly had a vision of the ‘pit of purgatory’.
According to a 12th-century text written by monk H. of Saltrey, St Patrick had this vision while praying for help in finding a way to convert the Irish pagans, and it came to fruition in the form of a cave located near a monastery founded by one of St Patrick’s disciples.
Anyone who entered the pit was believed to have visions of fire and monsters, in a similar way to how many of us might imagine hell now.
Gerald of Wales, a 12-century historian, claimed: “This part of the island contains nine pits, and should any one perchance venture to spend the night in one of them, … he is immediately seized by the malignant spirits.”
As to whether the devil has actually made any of these places his home remains to be seen – but it’s probably not worth finding out.
