6.01.2023
5 Dakika
Türkiye hosts many places identified with the events that appear in mythological narratives. With the special location of its geography, dozens of civilizations have flourished on these lands throughout the ages. And this land surprises us by suddenly bringing the fairy-tale lives of the people of the past, who watched the world with a different magic than ours, into reality with a step we take. One of these impressive places where mythology and reality meet is located in the Western Black Sea region, which stands out with its natural beauties. This place is the Cehennemağzı Caves, located near the Ancient City of Herakleia Pontica, which took its name from the mythological hero Heracles. It is believed that an important moment of one of the most famous mythological narratives took place here. Let's first explain what this popular mythological narrative is. We are talking about Heracles, or in other words, Hercules and his 12 missions.
The beginning of the story actually goes back to the birth of Hercules. Hercules was born when Zeus secretly had a relationship with the beautiful Alcmene, a descendant of the hero Perseus. Zeus' wife, Hera, was very angry when she learned about this relation. Hercules would always feel the breath of this angry goddess on his neck from then on. When the time came, Hercules married Megara, the daughter of a king, and had three children. However, Hercules kills these children in the middle of a fit of madness that Hera has unleashed on him. Of course, he feels great sadness and regret over this loss and begins to seek ways to atone for this great crime by condemning himself to a voluntary exile. The oracle of the city of Delphi says that he must enter the service of the Mycenaean King Eurystheus to pay this atonement, and thus the 12 missions of Hercules begin.
The last task of Hercules, who has spent many years trying to fulfill these 12 tasks, all of which are more difficult than the other, is more difficult than all of them. He had to go to the underworld, the dwelling of the dead, and bring Cerberus, the dog of the god Hades, who ruled there, to the earth. Getting to and from the nether world was not easy, even for a demigod hero like Hercules. The three-headed dog Cerberus, that needed to be brought to the earth, was a terrifying creature and his job was to prevent the dead from coming back to the earth. Hades mockingly accepted his permission to take the creature back to earth, and imposed only one condition on Hercules: He would not use any weapon to contain the dog, and would try to do it with bare hands. Defeating a creature like Cerberus with bare hands was a seemingly impossible task, but he was Hercules after all. At the end of a tough struggle, he succeeded and completed the tasks he needed to do to atone.
Here, the Hellmouth Caves, which are the subject of our article and located within the borders of Zonguldak province, come into play in this last part of the story. According to Herodorus of Herakleia, a historiographer who lived in 400 BC, and the tragedy writer Euphorion, the place where Hercules unearthed Cerberus is the Cehennemağzı Caves. According to the mythological narrative, the saliva dripping from the mouth of Kerberos, who got terrified and started barking violently as soon as he saw the sun, formed the poppy plants in the vicinity.
These unique caves, which are a gateway between mythology and reality as well as connecting the underground and the earth, are now open to visitors as a protected archaeological site. One of the caves in the ruins where there are three separate caves is the Church Cave, which was used as a church in the Roman and Byzantine periods and has an important place in the history of Christianity. You should definitely visit these caves where you will feel yourself in the mythological narrative.
