A was rediscovered in 2013. Until recently the cave-like structures in were believed to be the passageway to the underworld that nobody would return from alive. But, the ancient myth that 'Hades' breath' would kill everything that entered the gateway, has now been cleared up by scientists. Now it's believed that the myths surrounding the 'Gate to Hell' actually comes from ancient Greek geographer Starbo, who's 2,000-year-old book, 'Geographica', sets out the myth. It reads: "It is an opening of only moderate size large enough to admit a man, but it reaches a considerable depth and this space is full of a vapour so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. "Bulls that are led in to it fall and are dragged out dead. I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell." The 'Gate to Hell' was supposedly even used to sacrifice at one stage according to ancient folklore. But, peculiarly the legend also has it that castrated priests who were sent to their deaths there, actually managed to survive and Starbo mused that it must've been down to the fact that they had been castrated. And while it was believed by many for years to be 'Hades breath' that seemingly killed almost everything in its wake, another explanation has finally been uncovered. In 2018, a team of researchers, headed up by Hardy Pfanz a
volcano biologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen in
Germany carried out a series of tests and more precisely the CO2 levels. As day turned to night the levels of C02 would shoot up and he predicts that this is the time of day that the small animals will have been thrown in. He concluded that the animals wouldn't have been tall enough to escape the deadly gases. However, the priests according to Pfanz would have likely known that the gases only reached a maximum height, that was significantly lower than them.