Hades: Inside The Real Underworld Of Ancient Greece | Talking To The Dead | Absolute History

A terrifying network of ancient man-made tunnels in Italy might be the real entrance to the Greek underworld. Ancient literature tells us that living people visited the dead to ask them the future. Through a network of tunnels they believed they were travelling to ”the core of the earth” to consult the Oracle of The Dead. But this site in Italy, a complex network of tunnels, was designed to trick visitors into thinking they were visiting Hell.

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For centuries people have thought that the Greek underworld Hades was just a flight of fancy or a myth but I’m convinced that such a place existed because you see I’ve been There it took me 20 years but now I’m going to take you There the underworld was where people went when they died but it was also said to hold the keys to the Future ancient literature tells us that living people visited the dead to ask them what the future held in store they went down through an opening in the earth to consult what was called

The Oracle of the Dead it does sound like the fantasy of a Storyteller but this s in Italy has convinced me otherwise it’s a terrifying network of tunnels designed I’m sure to deceive visitors and make them believe they were actually going down into Hell in ancient times people were superstitious and oracles determined everything you couldn’t make war or peace go on a journey or get married without consulting some kind of Oracle and the foolproof way of doing this was to try to establish contact with the spirits of the Dead there were oracles all over the

Ancient world but the most extraordinary one to my mind has been completely overlooked it’s here on the West Coast of Italy the Bay of Naples is famous for the volcanic eruption which destroyed Pompei but long before the Romans the Greeks were here and their religious authorities chose a place Northwest of

Pompei to cash in on people’s superstitions here at B I believe they built the Oracle of the Dead beneath these later Roman ruins the Greeks constructed a virtual hell underground so convincing that people came here from all over the ancient world to meet their ancestors it was first located in the

1960s by a retired British engineer Robert padet one of the great discoveries of modern archaeology but completely unrecognized padet had read the descriptions of it in classical literature and had searched for it for years but he’d been ridiculed because most people assumed it was a myth and

Then the very day he chose to announce his Discovery President Kennedy was assassinated and padet was ignored ever since the tunnels have been dismissed by people who’ve never even ventured inside but I’ve been down there with a camera to see for myself the climax of a 20year quest for the

Truth I’ve come to realize how much the priests of the Greek World played on on people’s fears they stopped at nothing to Hoodwink those who came to them for help before I take you deeper into the mysterious tunnels at Baer I want to show you other ancient oracles where the

Elaborate tricks had been developed and as you’ll soon realize every Greek oracle used some sort of pious fraud this is Delian Greece founded about 800 BC and presided over by the god Apollo this was the major Oracle center of the ancient world behind me is a theater where the great Greek

Tragedies would have been performed and down below is the Temple of Apollo that’s where a prophesying priestess known as a Cil acting as the mouthpiece of the god foretold the future kings and politicians as well as the common people came enormous es to ask Apollo to reveal what was going to

Happen in their lives they’d be put up near the temple for days and the priests who ran the place extracted news and gossip from them so Deli made sure it was better informed than anywhere else in the world and better placed to prophesy the future the Wy priests also ran a network

Of carrier pigeons so they found out the result of distant battles or political changes weeks before anyone else and could safely announce them as prophecies knowledge they say is power and Deli was in effect the intelligence center of the ancient world a sort of CIA headquarters governments stored their

Gold here too the safest place in Greece the Oracle was Big Business cities Rose and fell on its advice and when the Spartans conquered Athens and wanted to raise it to the ground the cibil down here said no Apollo says it must be saved that’s the only reason we can still visit the

Acropolis in Athens today people came here in awe and trepidation because they were Consulting a god they had to pay a fee and write down their questions for the Civil in advance down here is where we believe the Cil actually sat now what did she do here and why was she underneath the

Temple like this two geological fault lines cross just here huge geological fault lines and the cracked Limestone bed on which this Temple rests contained petrochemicals which were released by these fault lines including the intoxicating gas ethylene which was used as an anesthetic until the 1960s it would have made the CBO enter

Into a State of Trance where she could utter her prophecy it was up to the priests to interpret what she said and make sure she was never wrong for instance King crus asked her advice on invading Persia she replied if you cross into Persia a great Empire will fall he invaded and was

Defeated ah said the priests she never said which empire the Persians or yours the name of the CLE comes from the the AIC dialect and it means full of God it’s very similar to the word enthusiasm which comes also from Greek Enos which means the God within you so both

Enthusiasm and cibil mean the same thing full of God but all that divine inspiration needed a little human encouragement the priests of the temple had an ingenious method for testing the strength of the gas they would secretly insert a goat beneath the temple and if

It passed out or died well they knew it was too strong it was just like the canary in the coal mine and so the cble would then call off for session for a month and it was a goat which originally discovered the site where the Temple of

Apollo now is ancient texts tell the story that a goat herd saw that his goat was behaving strangely and wanted to investigate he was overcome by the gas and that was how they discovered that there was this strange Vapor coming out of the earth which they could harness for their prophetic purposes

But the pious fraud of the oracles began centuries before the classical site of Deli was ever built we’re 8 mil further up Mount Parnassus from the dely that we know today but what most people don’t realize is that there was an earlier dely in fact 1500 years earlier it was called

Larea which means wolf howling City and it was right here on this hill there’s plenty of evidence that people lived here the whole hill is littered with fragments of pottery dating from between 1200 and 2000 BC and there are remnants of prehistoric buildings the original name of this

Place was nape which is an Indo-European word meaning Naval because this was thought to be the naval of the world the geographical center of the entire Earth tourists who visit the classic site of delie are shown the umal stone there signifying that dely was the naval

Of the world but I believe this was the original one the point is that lucara just like the deli we know wasn’t just a geographical center but an Intelligence Center around which the rest of Greece revolved because here too there was an oracle perhaps the earliest Greek oracle of

All you need quite a bit of energy to climb up to it but it’s impressive when you get there well here we are further up Mount Parnassus and this h Hill down there is the original settlement of Deli the classic site of Deli is more than 8 mil

Down the mountain that way and this cave this which is called the kiian cave is the original Oracle of Deli when people came here in ancient times for prophecies they would consult the three white maidens who were three local virgin girls who covered themselves all over with white flower to

Look like ghosts to resemble the dead and they would utter prophecies and if you brought them honey they would give you true answers but if you didn’t bring them honey they’d tell you lies so I I brought them honey I don’t imagine anybody’s done this for 2 and a half

Thousand years and this depression which is the place where the honey was offered was cut into this rock probably 3 and a half thousand years ago and appropriately enough it’s got an owl pellet beside it which the owl who lives in this cave regurgitated he’s a big

Eagle owl and he shrieks when he gets angry and this was the great Cave of Gaia the Earth goddess this was her sanctuary and this was where people came to have the answers to all the questions of what would happen in the future all the things that perplex

Them even in those days the Oracle was clever enough to impress its customers by laying on a religious experience you had to come in person and subject yourself to what the gods had to offer in ancient times this was conceived of as a Dragon’s Lair the Monstrous Earth

Serpent python lived here and his mistress was the Earth goddess Gaia you might be invited to come and spend the night here wrapped in sheep skins and hope to have a sacred dream in which God herself or otherwise the spirits of the Dead would come visit you as Phantoms in your

Dreams probably the Cil stood somewhere like this and in the natural Amphitheater below the public would be there to hear the prophecies G as the fortunetelling business expect landed all over Greece oracles like this one half an hour south of Deli developed new techniques for brainwashing their clients in 150 ad a Greek travel writer named penius consulted the Oracle of tronus here and left an eyewitness account a few days beforehand you had to

Stay in a room of isolation where you became more and more suggestible then the night before you went into the Oracle you were brought here to this pool two boys of the Town who had to be 13 years old rubbed you down all over with olive oil then they helped you to

Bathe in this pool and when you came out you were clothed in a white linen tunic with a red Sash and very heavy boots and you were ready the next thing that happened is they gave you something to drink they gave you a cup which they call the water of forgetfulness to help

You forget everything that happened before your visit and another thing which they called the water of memory to help you remember your VIs that you were about to have what you didn’t know was they had doctored both these drinks very heavily with drugs the potions used plants like

Hen Bane hore Thorn Apple belladon and opium all of which are very strong poisons you had to drink these hallucinatory potions before you were allowed to consult the Oracle sometimes it killed people it was certainly dangerous at one distant Oracle they softened you up even more with seances with the spirits of the

Dead archaeologists today have worked out what went on we’re off the northwest coast of Greece between kufu and pxas and we’re just entering the mouth of the river Aeron the river of Woe our destination is the necr monan the Greek Oracle of the dead and were arriving as they did in Antiquity by

Sea they came with plenty of money to persuade the priests to hold a seance and summon up the spirits of their ancestors you didn’t actually visit the underworld here the Spirit came to you but it was spooky all the same the river of Woe was a murky

Mysterious place as he rode up it dank creepy it got you in the mood for meeting the ghosts of The Departed I’ve come to consult the Oracle of the dead and I’ve been LED in by some priests this is probably my bedroom upstairs because there’s a second story of Timber and brick there

Are more bedrooms in a dining room this is a changing room here I disrobe and I come into here which is the bathing room for rich ual purification and now I’m going to do a superstitious thing I’m going to throw a stone to ward off evil spirits these

Stones were found by the excavators in this spot thrown by people in Antiquity for that very purpose then I come over here and I wash my hands in holy water to purify them and now I’m led into the room of preparation I would probably be isolated

In here for for about 3 days which would make me highly suggestible is what we call sensory deprivation today and then I would be fed loopen seeds during that time to make me hallucinate and have visions we know that because the excavators have found Vats full of them

Here then I would be led into the consultation and here I have to sacrifice a sheep animal bones have been found here by the archaeologists so here’s a pit waiting for me and the blood runs into the Earth as it has to do for the dead I have to

Remove the liver and place it here for inspection that’s called the science of extispicy looking for Omens if they’re favorable I can go ahead I’m now about to enter the Labyrinth here is an iron door with an arch over it the iron nails and plates were found by the excavators so I enter

The Labyrinth which symbolizes the winding ways of the entrance to Hades and I come to this little chamber which perhaps was placed for a small ritual then here I have the second iron door waiting for me I wind along here and now I come to the third and

Final iron door where there’s a modern replica in place and and I’m ready to enter the central chamber before entering I want to call your attention to these massive walls that surround this place they’re 11 ft thick and secret passages have been found in the mall through which the

Priest could circulate without being seen to carry out their tricks I’m now led into the central chamber where I am received by the chief priest and he informs me of what a solemn occasion this is he invites me to make an offering of milk a libation to the deities of the

Underworld in this very spot and this is the original bronze cover and it’s very heavy the penalty for revealing what happened in here was death and if you Dar to talk about it somebody might slit your throat that’s why we have so few accounts but we do have one it’s in

Herodotus and he tells the story of what happened in this very chamber about 600 BC there was a very nasty Tyrant of Corinth called perander whose hobby was killing the leading citizens and then he killed his own wife Melissa but he did it before he found

Out where she’d hidden some money so he sent an emissary here to inquire of her ghost where it was she appeared and she said I know where it is but I’m not telling I’m cold in this place I hate the dress he buried me in and got a thing to wear

And then she gave a cated message tell him that he put his Loaf in a cold oven perander was pretty terrified when he heard that because he was the only one who knew that he had had sex with her dead body well he then called a big festival

At the Temple of Hera he ordered all the women of the town to come in their finest dresses and then as they arrived one by one he had them stripped naked he took all the dresses and threw them to a giant pit that he dug and set them all

On fire as an offering to Melissa is that enough dresses for you Melissa then he sent the Emissary back and she said okay I’ve got a great wardrobe now so I’ll tell you where the money is this amazing place which we think was built about 700 BC symbolized the journey to the

Underworld but nowhere in Greece Could you actually go to the underworld and experience hell for yourself there was only one place for that I think it’s time we went to Italy the Roman poet Virgil describes a visit to the underworld in his epic the anad after the fall of Troy his Hero anas has sailed to Italy to found Rome on the way not far from Naples he decides to go down to Hell to consult the spirit of his dead

Father until now Virgil’s account was seen as a vivid bit of poetic license but from my own exploration I believe that Virgil who lived nearby had been here before me tracing anas’s Journey step by step first stop Kuma of a prophetic Cil like the one in

Deli and it’s an exciting moment in the Epic when the ships come and Beach their Sterns which you could do in those days because of ships didn’t have Rudders they were steered by steering ores which were off to the side this old scrub Forest is mentioned

By the ancient writers and he would have made his way through it up to the Acropolis and then he would have been taken to see the civil let me tell you a story about the simple the god Apollo fell in love with her but she spurned his advances she said no I

Have to remain a virgin so he said okay I understand and just to prove there are no hard feelings I’d like to give you a Divine gift what would you like well she said do you see that pile of sand over there in the corner I’d

Like to live one year for every grain of sand in that pile okay fine well 700 years later somebody ran into her and said you’re holding up moderately well she said no I’m not I made a terrible mistake I forgot to ask for Eternal youth to go with the eternal life look

At me I can barely stand up and I’ve still got 300 years to go when Virgil wrote about an coming down this passage to consult the CLE we didn’t know until 1932 whether it was fact or fantasy but then an Italian archaeologist excavated this amazing place and we know it’s

True this strange geometrical shape is called trapezoidal or you could call it linous shaped there are lots of these openings to the passage viril describes the quite clearly there’s a huge cave hollowed out from the flank of Kuma’s Hill 100 wide approaches it has 100 miles from which there issue a 100

Voices the cil’s Answers Here we have three bathing pools with steps leading down into them the Cil had to purify herself before she prophesied so she came and had a bath Here at the end of the passage we come into the cil’s chamber at this end visitors would have stood and outside as well because this was a public occasion here there was a partition and behind it the cble would have made herself ready and when she was prepared to

Prophesy she would come out and enter the prophesying chamber on either side here are these benches carved out of the stone this is where supplicants like anas would have sat anxiously waiting their fate the CLE meanwhile came came into her prophesying chamber and there was a raised platform here and she would have

Come up onto this platform there are niches here for lamps on either side for illumination on either side here people would have stood with flaming torches also flanking her were ferocious hounds Tethered to these three points carved out of the Rock and these three hounds were portrayed pred as the

Three-headed Hound of Hell kerberus on the back of the coins of Kumar her hair flew wildly about her breast was heaving her Fay heart swelled in ecstasy Larger than Life she seemed more than mortal her utterance the God was close breathing his inspiration through her anas begs

The Sipple to take him into the underworld but he can’t be half-hearted about it hurry up she tells him hurry up and say your prayers anas or the spell won’t work and she warns him that some who visit the underworld don’t come out alive the stage is set for the most

Extraordinary part of anas’s quest and of ours anas is accompanied by the Cil now she’s taking him on a very mysterious sea Journey it has to be by sea because the place he’s going to was inaccessible by land due to the dense forests that uh covered this place in ancient

Times he’s being taken to the very jaws of hell I don’t suppose there was much small talk on the journey anas would have been anxious about meeting his father who’d only recently died and and The Perils of the underworld would have prayed on his mind from Kuma they sailed around the

Hland and entered the harbor of B but in anas’s day before the Romans cut down all the trees to make ships the surrounding Hills and Shore were covered in gigantic oak trees which were hundreds of years old hanging down gloomily over the water’s Edge in those days the volcanic activity in this region not far from Mount fuus was much more intense so that the whole place was shrouded in mist and sulfurous fumes and gave a forbidding and terrifying impression a true Realm of the Dead in ancient times when people were

Confronted by live volcano like this one nearby they naturally assumed that the Netherworld Gods down below were up to something it smells sickly sweet of sulfur here as if I were surrounded by a million rotten eggs all covered in Sugar fumes of sulfur were used in the ancient Oracle centers for purification

Purposes but they also came in handy for the softening up process to unnerve you for your descent into hell and even The Fearless hero anias was terrified by the time he got there at last we are near the end of our Quest here at Baya on the west coast of

Italy in Roman times this was really the beitz or the Monte Carlo of the ancient world and a chief attraction was this place the amazing BS of mercury in the pool beneath this Dome the Emperor Augustus and his friend the poet Virgil certainly bathed but before these Roman bars were

Built long before baa had a much more Sinister significance in pre-roman days the Greeks colonized baa what they created here struck the fear of God into all who visited it at the height of their power the Romans blocked up large parts of it and sealed it off so effectively that it

Has remained hidden for 2,000 years what’s wrong with this picture no I don’t mean me this doesn’t fit with this this is Greek and this is Roman when the Italians excavated this bath area which had been destroyed by a huge earthquake in 63 ad in the time of

Nero they found that the earthquake had brought down this Roman wall to reveal beneath it these ancient blocks which we have reasonable grounds today to about 550 BC that was long before any Romans came to this area and that proves that there was a substantial Greek structure

On this spot but down below is something far more extraordinary we’re about to enter an enormous complex of tunnels and Chambers going hundreds of feet into the solid rock culminating in a man-made River the river sticks this was the Greek Hades or hell we’re about to enter the Oracle of the Dead It’s my belief that Virgil descended here because he lived nearby and his hero anus was described as coming down here to the underworld many ancient writers described many real and mythical figures coming here Odus of the Odyssey orus who lost his wife idy here Hercules Theus Hannibal and skipio well

Well thousands probably tens of thousands of mosquitoes and creepy crawlies many types of spiders they they don’t seem to bite I don’t know what’s wrong with them don’t they know a good meal when they see One we’ve reached the end of the entrance tunnel 400 ft in from the Cliff face carved out of the solid rock and if I look at my compass I see the entrance tunnel has for its entire length been Due West but now it bends by 20° and

Descends sharply to the river sticks but what is this this looks like a normal wall of a tunnel but it isn’t it’s an artificial partition put there by the Romans made of cement here the Romans have put large tiles to block off what was an ENT entrance um

Originally there was a door instead of the partition that could close off either tunnel it’s what we call the dividing of the Waves this is what we call the chimney it’s made of twof for bricks and it’s one of the that leades between the levels and this is what we call the rise and it’s very slippery it’s a Stairway underneath but you’d never know it with all this rubble

And just here we have the remains of a doorway a double doorway one of the many wooden doors that would have been in here when it was functioning and now I’ve come upstairs to the upper level Here behind this wall is the inner sanctum where the sanes were held and there are three doors Two of which you can see here which were bricked up by the Romans and the entire chamber filled with Earth and Rubble if you crawl in there you can see that there are several columns carved

Out of tufa to hold up the roof of the chamber and here is the special place described in the anad by Virgil the niche where anas has to make an offering of mistletoe and I’ve brought a bow of mistletoe to the goddess pranie Queen of the underworld

Her special name used here was daa and so I’ve honored her because I hope to get out of here in one piece this tunnel goes around the inner sanctum and goes on for about 200 ft and by this means they would have come through to the inner sanctum and

Then gone out the other way pretty confusing for them unfortunately the Romans didn’t want us to go down here so where the tunnel descends it’s very much blocked so we can’t get down there just imagine the sheer effort in digging these tunnels in the first place in cramped and dangerous conditions

Removing the Rock and Earth would have been backbreaking it must have taken dozens of years this is yet another tunnel in the Oracle Center it and its partner run parallel to each other for about 150 ft and join up at the far end just beyond the point of the dividing of the

Ways but this one’s largely been filled up by the Romans after their dirty work as usual and here we have our only graffiti no later than the Romans red paint on the wall this could possibly say ilas a name of Troy this could be a monogram of m a

Or an expert has suggested that it’s to him a well-known esoteric symbol for the name of the goddess Hera who was the queen of the gods we don’t know now down here and this is a very narrow ledge our further tunnels we call them North 120 and south

120 because of the bearing they run parallel to each other but North 120 is completely blocked by the Romans and south 120 is mostly blocked but you can get along it with a very great difficulty it’s difficult enough to carve one tunnel out of the solid rock

So why build two side by side my hunch is the parallel corridors were used to disorientate the suppl a priest who was behind you for instance could secretly overtake and magically appear in front of you I tried to crawl down south 120 to see how the tunnels interconnected but I couldn’t get far

Enough so my rather more wiry director Alistair Reed bravely volunteered to take my place okay I’m game for it well you’re a courageous man Allie you know what you’ve got ahead of you don’t you you’ve got this narrow bit you have to crawl through and then it widens out and for

About 30 feet you can Crouch and then you’ll come to the bones of a dead hair and at that point it Narrows to only 18 in and then you have to crawl along that with your face in the dirt and uh have your dust mask gone of

Course and uh when you get to the end I’ll be waiting for you on the other side of the partition that the rans put in and we can have a little chat okay oh wait we forgot one thing what are we gonna talk about off you go and this is the easy

Part see you can Crouch now yep do you see the dead hair yet not not yet I’ve got the dead hair you found the hair good poor hair got trapped in here and couldn’t find its way out I’m in the narrow bit I see two tunnel entrances and there seems to be another

Corridor off to the left which I’ll try and get into I can hear knocking hello Alistair can you hear me I can hear you I can hear you too you sound faint but I can hear you very well look for evidence of a level below a way

Into the level below where you are now all I can see is a pile of rubble above another Corridor I’ve definitely come to the meeting the meeting of North 120 and south 120 so where does the third Corridor go it goes off to the left of south

120 but it seems to be too blocked to be able to get into it’s too much blocked up is it oh what about this pile of rubble you mentioned it seems to me as though it’s a man-made pile of rocks like a wall not a rockfall the the roof

Seems to be quite secure keep in your mind the exact shape so you can draw it okay well you better go back now Ally thanks very much so the tunnels do interconnect all part of the Greeks plan to intimidate you on your journey through the underworld these tunnels were not just

An underground maze they were cleverly designed to convince the client that this was indeed the underworld here’s one of over 500 oil lamp niches carved in the walls in order to create the spooky atmosphere when the client came to the spirits he would have his way lighted by

Oil lamps here’s another one for instance and at certain points in the Oracle they Bunch up and become more numerous in order to create a more intense lighting effect my God it’s a temple to the underground deities someone coming here to consult the spirits of the Dead would feel himself in a sacred

Precinct even though the niches are very simple just hacked into the walls no great Artistry about it the combined effect of all the lamps it’s absolutely absolutely wonderful and this is the particularly echoing Corridor where the sound Echo perfect place for Chanting imagine you’re coming down to consult the spirits of the dead and you have this experience and your you’re drugged highly suggest they may not have had LSD in those days but they had more potent herbal drugs henbane belladon hore substances that are so strong that have taken an excess they kill

You and some people never returned from the underworld they were said to be claimed by the underworld this would be getting you ready for the great journey across the river sticks which awaits you the Cil of Kuma would be ahead of you dressed in a Scarlet cloak behind you would be men in

Terrifying pointed headgear with eyelets looking like the Kus Clan and as you came down here the Cil would say to you if you look to the left you will see the billowing clouds of smoke rising from torus and you will hear the cries of Anguish and pain the screams and moans

Of the suffering dead and you would hurry past that and go down to the river Stak This is the Bank of the river sticks it may not look like it goes very far but it’s 150 ft long we know this because in the 1960s an American Army diver named David Lewis went diving here and he followed the whole length as he went he felt the

Lamp niches because he couldn’t see them with his fingers all the way along and about halfway this River widens into a lake 30 by 40t which in mythology was called the lake of memory and you were rode along here in a small coracle by someone who in mythology was called

Kon as you were rode along here by Kon you would have heard the terrifying sound of the howling hound of hell curus and the hair would have risen on the back of your neck as you realized what lay ahead of you and that you might never Return When you disembarked at the far end of the sticks you were then taken up another flight of steps and brought into the inner sanctum where the whole Seance took place in anas’s case he sees the spirits of the as yet unborn Heroes of Rome from Romulus to the Emperor

Augustus and has an emotional meeting with his own dead father oh let me take your hand and embrace you father let me withdraw not even as he spoke his cheeks grew wet with a flood of Tears three times he tried to put his arms around his father’s neck three times the Phantom

Slipped his vain embrace it was like grasping a wisp of wind or the wings of a fleeting dream the power of this place is awesome no wonder the Roman authorities were afraid of it and set out to crush it the emperor himself a God could not tolerate a rival source of

Authority we know it was built long before the Romans came here but we can’t yet say win we know the Greeks harnessed hallucination Superstition sensory deprivation and exhaustion everything that the oracles had traditionally used to overcome the rational mind the prophecy Seekers traveled great distances to know their Destiny the Deep

Tunnels of Bia were the culmination of their Journey this was the underworld of their dreams their night NES what we have seen is only the beginning because underneath the Roman Rubble behind the Roman partitions are secrets yet to be explored perhaps the living quarters of the trite priests and

The buried contents of the inner sanctum itself where the seanes were held and I have detected a lower level of tunnels which we haven’t penetrated yet It took me 20 years to get inside this place with proper excavation we could reach into its deepest recesses only then shall we fully appreciate the surreal fantasy of the Oracle of the Dead