PM - Archaeologists discover 'Gate to Hell' 03/04/2013

TIM PALMER: The entrance to the Underworld, the River Styx and Hades are among the darkest and most memorable archetypes in all of ancient mythology. Now Italian archaeologists say they've found the physical place celebrated by the ancients as that door to hell or Pluto's Gate at ruins in south-western Turkey.

In Greek and Roman mythology the portal was both feared and revered, as Jennifer Macey reports

JENNIFER MACEY: The ancient Greek geographer Strabo who died in 24 AD, visited the city of Hierapolis and wrote this famous description of the entrance to the Underworld.

(Extract from book)

STRABO (translated): 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.

JENNIFER MACEY: It was the exact same phenomenon, seeing birds drop dead, that alerted a team of contemporary archaeologists that they may have stumbled on Pluto's Gate.

Professor of classic archaeology at the University of Salento, Francesco D'Andria says they discovered the cave's lethal properties during the excavation when several birds that were trying to get to the warm underground vent succumbed to the carbon dioxide fumes.

The team were reconstructing the route of a thermal spring and found ruins of a shrine inscribed with a dedication to the god of the underworld - Pluto.

Dr Alistair Blanshard is a senior lecturer at the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney.

ALISTAIR BLANSHARD: Well it's an extraordinary exciting discovery. The site where this gate has been found, Hierapolis, is a remarkable city really a fabulous site and if anyone is ever going to Turkey they should definitely include it on their itinerary, you know it's hard to recommend going to the gates of hell.

The site Hierapolis is a fabulous site but very badly damaged by earthquakes so piecing together the various parts of the site has always been difficult so when this inscription was discovered which allowed us to identify that we had in fact the Plutonian the shrine to Pluto it was a great discovery.

JENNIFER MACEY: Historians had long suspected that the World Heritage site of Hierapolis in south-western Turkey was home to Pluto's gate. The latest excavations also revealed a nearby thermal pool and courtyard which is believed to have been the meeting place for priests and pilgrims.

ALISTAIR BLANSHARD: It was famous for being extraordinarily dangerous, it was a crack in the ground and it emitted this kind of noxious gasses which we know as carbon dioxide and if you were to go into the place you would die and death and poison were very much part of the kind of signature that Pluto had been about.

JENNIFER MACEY: Dr Blanshard says the site was also famous for black magic and was destroyed by the early Christians in 6AD.

ALISTAIR BLANSHARD: For example we know that if you ever wanted to curse someone in the ancient world you would write out a letter to the gods of the Underworld asking your opponent to be cursed and then you'd through it either into a grave or in to one of the entrances to the Underworld and they would then curse your opponent so - an extraordinary place.

JENNIFER MACEY: How long have archaeologists been looking for this?

ALISTIAIR: We've always known that the site existed but trying to kind of put the thing back together again, I mean the thing that gives it it's amazing character these kind of volcanic gasses that emerge also mean that it's kind of seismically unstable and so the place has been destroyed by earthquake and gradually is being pieced together.

TIM PALMER: Dr Alistair Blanshard from the University of Sydney speaking there to Jennifer Macey.