Is this the real Hell ?

[dipsydoodle]

Is this the real Hell? The incredible stone age cave used for burial rituals which experts believe inspired the Greek legend of Hades.




To the depths of hell: It has been suggested that this cave called Alepotrypa might have helped serve as the inspiration for the mythic ancient Greek underworld god Hades


An ancient Greek cave nearly the size of four football pitches and with its own underground lake may be responsible for sparking the age-old myth about the Greek underworld god Hades, archaeologists claim.

The cavern - named Alepotrypa which means 'foxhole' - laid undiscovered for centuries in Diros Bay, Mani, southern Greece, until a man walking his dog found a tiny entrance to the cave in the 1950s.

Experts have spent the last few decades excavating the cave and believe hundreds of people lived inside Alepotrypa, making it one the oldest prehistoric villages in Europe, before the cave entrance collapsed burying everyone alive 5,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have now uncovered tools, pottery, obsidian, silver and copper artifacts that date back to the Neolithic Age, which began in Greece began around 9,000 years ago, soon before the Stone Age.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240430/Alepotrypa-Incredible-cave-experts-believe-inspired-Greek-legend-Hades.html#ixzz2DfLkvaLZ

[NYC_SKP]

1. WTH is a "football pitch" and why must we measure using the sports field convention???

I do understand square feet and square yards, but I don't have any experience using the "football pitch" unit of measurement.

[dhill926]

2. soccer field?

[caraher]

5. yep

The pitfalls of sports references and the idiosyncrasies of English vs. American English

[krispos42]

6. You mean Anglic and Americ?

[awoke_in_2003]

21. No such thing as an American football pitch...

"pitch" is used in English sports.

[dipsydoodle]

9. Two nations blah blah

Fair comment. Assume a single European soccer pitch to be about 2 acres. I doubt the site is uniform so they didn't simply use feet or yards - they used area instead.

As to whether they meant a American football or soccer I guess that might depend on the nationality of the archeologists.

[lastlib]

13. Is that MY football pitch, or Peyton Manning's???

American football, or European?

WTH is a football pitch?

[NYC_SKP]

14. I don't know, but the hell is as big as TWO of them!

[siligut]

18. Mr gut has great distance determination

He attributes this to having played football in high school. Though, when communicating he expresses this in standard units of measure, unlike Ms Hill.

[bluerum]

3. Wow. 9000 year old artifacts.

[Ikonoklast]

8. Meh. At the top of my street, while prepping the site for a new cell tower, Paleo-Indian artifacts

were discovered that were over 15,000 years old.

Which was rather disconcerting, as that kinda shot big holes into the previously held position that there were no human inhabitants in this part of North America dating back to anywhere before that.

There are three sites now within a fifty-mile radius here in NE Ohio that are now thought to pre-date Clovis.

It's a big hush-hush archaeological site now, no one is supposed to know about it...so, every one knows what they're doing up there.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. WOW!! Where, where???

I want to seeeee! That is soooooo cool!

[Judi Lynn]

4. So glad to learn about this place. Want to read as much as possible. This is so rare, isn't it?

From a quick search:

'Fox hole' opens passage to Neolithic past, possibly Hades
Field Museum curator and archaeologists excavate cave in Southern Greece
October 18, 2012
Cassidy Herrington

~snip~
They are excavating Alepotrypa Cave, which is nearly four football fields long. The researchers compare the most striking room in the cave to a Cathedral.

“It’s a very awesome place, in the literal sense of the word,” Parkinson said. “I can only think that, several thousand years ago, when it was lit by torches, not by electric lamps like it is now, it would have been all that more striking.”

They have unearthed tools and pottery that remain from a Neolithic (Stone Age) community between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago. Under the dripping stalactites, skeletons dating as far back as 8,000 years rest under layers of sediment.

“It’s the closest thing we have to something like a Neolithic Pompeii in the Mediterranean,” Parkinson said.

More:
http://www.wbez.org/sections/lifestyle/fox-hole-opens-passage-neolithic-past-possibly-hades-103199

[Warpy]

7. Christian hell was also inspired by a real place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegraean_Fields

It should be noted that the city of Pozzuoli nearby has been abandoned by full time residents because of the buildup of toxic gases in the buildings and instability from frequent quakes.

[gateley]

15. Wow -- that's interesting, too!

[Judi Lynn]

10. Ancient Greek Cave Speaks of Hades Myth

Ancient Greek Cave Speaks of Hades Myth
Dan Vergano
USA Today
Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:00 CST



~snip~
.....Overlooking a quiet Greek bay, Alepotrypa Cave contains the remains of a Stone Age village, burials, a lake and an amphitheater-sized final chamber that saw blazing rituals take place more than 5,000 years ago. All of it was sealed from the world until modern times, and scholars are only now reporting what lies within.

"What you see there almost cannot be described," says archaeologist Anastasia Papathanasiou of the Greek Ministry of Culture, a director of the Diros Project Team. "There is almost no Neolithic (Stone Age) site like it in Europe, certainly none with so many burials."

So far, her team has uncovered about 160 burials inside the cave, from a time 7,000 to 5,200 years ago (5000 to 3200 BC) when farming first spread to Europe. The lives those farmers led inside and outside the cave, across the remote Mani Peninsula of southern Greece, offer fresh insights into life at the dawn of civilization in Europe.

~snip~
We are going to need a bigger new museum," Papathanasiou says. "We are just getting started bringing this site to the world."

http://www.sott.net/article/242079-Ancient-Greek-Cave-Speaks-of-Hades-Myth

[xtraxritical]

12. I'm warming up to it.

[D Gary Grady]

16. Neolithic = New Stone Age

Very interesting post! But with an odd assertion in the original Daily Mail article:

"Archaeologists have now uncovered tools, pottery, obsidian, silver and copper artifacts that date back to the Neolithic Age, which began in Greece began around 9,000 years ago, soon before the Stone Age."

"Neolithic Age" literally means "New Stone Age" -- i.e., the last part of the Stone Age -- so it can't very well be "soon before the Stone Age."

[progressoid]

17. marking this for a later read.

[DavidDvorkin]

19. Modern Hell is

journalists who don't know the difference between "lie" and "lay".

[lilsourgoose]

20. Really?

I thought it was in Orlando.

[RagAss]

22. Sounds like an Ancient Mall to me.