Late-antique underworld portal excavated near Jerusalem?

SPELUNCIC, CHTHONIC, NECROMANTIC ARCHAEOLOGY? ‘Oracle of the dead’ cave was used for rituals in Israel — likely by witches, study says (Irene Wright, Miami Herald).

The combination of the deep pit in the cave, the skulls for necromancy, the lamps for divination and the weapons for protection suggest to the researchers that the Te’omim Cave was used as a portal to the underworld.

The underlying article in the Harvard Theological Review is open access:

Oil Lamps, Spearheads and Skulls: Possible Evidence of Necromancy during Late Antiquity in the Te’omim Cave, Judean Hills

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2023

Eitan Klein andBoaz Zissu

Abstract

The Te’omim Cave is a large karst cave located in the Jerusalem Hills. Since 2009, the cave has been explored by our team as a joint project of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University and the Cave Research Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Over 120 intact oil lamps were collected in the 2010–2016 survey seasons from all sections of the cave; most of them were dated to the second to fourth centuries CE. All of these lamps had been deliberately inserted in narrow, deep crevices in the main chamber walls or beneath the rubble. Some crevices contained groups of oil lamps mixed with weapons and pottery vessels from earlier periods or placed with human skulls. This article discusses the possibility that the oil lamps, weapons, human skulls, and other artifacts were used as part of necromancy ceremonies that took place in the cave during the Late Roman period, and that the cave may have served as a local oracle (nekyomanteion).

For another ancient underworld portal active at the same time (the Plutonium at Hierapolis in Turkey), see Carl Rasmussen's recent post at the Holy Land Photos' Blog: The Gate to Hades is Now Open!

Yet another underworld portal — a Zapotec one now under a church in Mitla, Oxaxa, Mexico — appears to have been rediscovered recently using non-invasive ground-penetrating technology: Archaeologists may have found ruins of fabled entrance to Zapotec underworld. Spanish missionaries deemed Lyobaa to be a "back door to hell" and sealed all entrances (JENNIFER OUELLETTE, Ars Technica).

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