In this interpretation, the underground stream represented the fabled River Styx, which the dead had to cross to enter Hades; a coracle, Paget speculated, would have been waiting to ferry visitors across, and a crossing made in darkness might have concealed the stream’s meagre breadth. The antrum at Baia proved difficult to explore. Watered by the streams of five rivers (Styx, Acheron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Lethe), the Underworld was divided into at least four regions: Tartarus (reserved for … The Fields, which lie on the north shore of the Bay of Naples, are part of the caldera of a volcano that is the twin of Mount Vesuvius, the destroyer of Pompeii, a few miles to the east. Yegul discounted Paget’s findings in a published document as fanciful. You've got to get the true facts. Because of this, the quest continued, and gradually the remaining searchers focused their attentions on the old Roman resort of Baia, which lies on the Bay of Naples at a spot where the Phlegræan Fields vanish beneath the Tyrrhenian Sea. The tunnels, then, in Paget’s view, might have been constructed to allow priests to persuade their patrons – or perhaps simply wealthy travellers – that they had journeyed to the underworld. or Terms of Use A symbolic death and rebirth perhaps. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! But even the scanty evidence the two men had managed to gather during this early phase of their investigation persuaded them that it was worth pressing on. Further blockages were found elsewhere in the tunnel system; according to Paget’s rough calculations, something like 7,000 cubic feet [200m3] of soil had been carried in baskets from the surface, an operation that would have required 15,000 man-journeys down the narrow passageways. The sibyl, so the story goes, was a woman named Amalthæa who lurked in a cave on the Phlegræan Fields. What makes this story of interest to historians as well as folklorists is that there is good evidence that three Greek scrolls, known collectively as the Sibylline Books, really were kept, closely guarded, for hundreds of years after the time of Tarquin the Proud. Parke. A plan of Baiae’s mysterious “Oracle of the Dead,” showing the complex layout of the tunnels and their depth below ground level. The portion that is still accessible on land consists of a barren, rubble-strewn plateau. The tunnel system, the two men proposed, had been constructed by priests to mimic a visit to the Greeks’ mythical underworld. It was the discovery of this stream that led Paget to formulate his daring hypothesis that the Great Antrum was intended as a representation of the mythic underground passageways to Hades. During the excavation nobody went down there, at least officially they didn’t. For one thing, the sheer amount of spoil that had been hauled into the depths suggested a considerable degree of organization–years later, when the excavation of the tunnel was complete, it would be estimated that 700 cubic yards of rubble, and 30,000 man-journeys, had been required to fill it. Nothing highly significant – the official line is still that these complex tunnels are a simple steam vent supplying steam to some Roman baths. three hundred harvests, three hundred vintages, The first curious onlookers who pressed their heads into its cramped entrance discovered a pitch-black passageway that was uncomfortably hot and wreathed in fumes; they penetrated only a few feet into the interior before beating a hasty retreat. Image: Wikicommons. He and Jones pressed their way though the narrow opening and found themselves inside a high but narrow tunnel, eight feet tall but just 21 inches wide. The best-known–and from our perspective the most interesting–of all the tales associated with the sibyl is supposed to date to the reign of Tarquinius Superbus–Tarquin the Proud. Being Roman, etc? Baiae lies at the northeastern tip of the peninsula of Bacoli, at the extreme westerly end of the Fields. Paget was one of the handful of men who still hoped to locate the “cave of the sibyl” described by Virgil, and it was this obsession that made him willing to risk the inhospitable interior. The river is fed by two narrow entrances to the left of it, now submerged. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Equates to 26th February in our terms. Yet much remains mysterious about the Great Antrum–not least the vexed question of how ancient builders, working with primitive tools at the end of the Bronze Age, could possibly have known of the existence of the “River Styx,” much less excavated a tunnel that so neatly intercepted it. Secreted in a stone chest in a vault beneath the Temple of Jupiter, the scrolls were brought out at times of crisis and used, not as a detailed guide to the future of Rome, but as a manual that set out the rituals required to avert looming disasters. Really interesting story that is well written too. The legends of there being an oracle of the dead in this region were persistent. London: Robert Hale, 1967; H.W. And if visitors were scared, befuddled, or even drugged, it would have been possible to create a powerfully otherworldly experience, one capable of persuading even the most sceptical of the priests’ power. Fire bursts from the rocks in places, and clouds of sulphurous gas snake out of vents that lead up from deep underground. There is a tunnel leading up to the sanctuary from the back end of the Styx, frogmen found it and it connects up with a tunnel that can be seen leading off the sanctuary. In the Footsteps of Orpheus. Objectives of Daddy's Home. It is fair to say that most of those who have come after him have admitted themselves more or less baffled by at least some of the odder aspects of the tunnels. A general plan of the tunnel complex, drawn by Robert Paget. In 1965 they persuaded a friend, Colonel David Lewis of the U.S. Army, to investigate the Styx for them using scuba apparatus. 1. Because of this, the quest continued, and gradually the remaining searchers focused their attentions on the old Roman resort of Baiæ (Baia), which lies on Bay of Naples at a spot where the Phlegræan Fields vanish beneath the Tyrrhenian Sea. I thought the sibyl Amalthea mentioned more interesting than the cave. […] Today’s weird stuff story inspiration, The Tunnels of Baiæ just beg for a dark story […], […] a terrific article about the Cave of the Sybil at Baia, near Naples. The Fields are part of the caldera of a volcano that is the twin of Mount Vesuvius, a few miles to the east, the destroyer of Pompeii. There is no trace of the boiling river at the surface. Baiae and the Bay of Naples, painted by J.M.W. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. One central question may well be whether it is possible to see Paget’s channel of “boiling water” deep underground as anything other than a deliberate representation of one of the fabled rivers that girdled Hades – if not the Styx itself, then perhaps the Phlegethon, the mythic “river of fire” that, in Dante’s Inferno, boils the souls of the departed. Somebody, he decided, had once been very anxious to stop up the tunnel system and conceal its purpose. California Do Not Sell My Info I don’t know about obvious, but this could be. Change ). What Was on the Menu at the First Thanksgiving? It is not obvious from the detailed plans worked on by Paget and Jones for four years that there is any natural cave which was widened. A small “landing stage” projected out into the sulfurous waters, which ran from left to right across the tunnel and disappeared into the darkness. The existence of the Sibylline Books certainly suggests that Rome took the legend of the Cumæan sibyl seriously, and indeed the geographer Strabo, writing at about the time of Christ, clearly states that there actually was “an Oracle of the Dead” somewhere in the Phlegræan Fields. “Is it not obvious that there must have been a natural cave which was widened as part of the design?”. Opened partially, it could have been used (the explorer suggested) as a remarkably effective ventilation system; hot, vitiated air would be sucked out of the tunnel complex at ceiling level, while currents of cooler air from the surface were constantly drawn in along the floor. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. It is off-limits to anyone, even if permission is requested of the authorities.

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