10.
The Alchemical Door of Rivodutri In the small Italian village of Rivodutri,
most of everything was destroyed in a devastating earthquake that took place in 1948.
But there was one curious architectural element that remained standing when everything else
was shattered.
It's called the alchemical door, and it's nothing short of bizarre.
The portal, because that's really what it looks like these days, was originally located
in the Camiciotti Palazzo, but now stands guard in front of a small memorial park.
It was created in the 17th century, with one side of the door decorated in strange carvings
and symbols that are supposed to represent the idea of the great transmutation.
Now, if you're not sure what transmutation is, let me quickly explain.
Ancient alchemists believed one material could be transmuted into a different material, usually
worthless metal into precious gold.
Alchemists were convinced that if they had the right formula, they could transform any
ordinary metal into gold and therefore get stinking rich.
But instead of displaying the formula for how to turn metal into gold, experts believe
this doorway was decorated with symbols meant to represent the transmutation of the soul
into a state of awareness.
It's all quite confusing, especially when you look at the actual symbols that are on
the doorway.
There are Pagan symbols, Christian symbols, Cabbalistic and alchemical symbols – all
of them arranged in such a way that scholars have never been able to decode it.
Nobody knows if the portal is supposed to be read from the bottom or the top.
All we really know is that the 17th century was a time when the nobility of Europe were
deeply involved with alchemical practices.
It was a weird merger between science and magic, secrets of biology, and esoteric knowledge.
The Alchemical Doorway of Rivodutri is one of the very last pieces of this mysterious
time in history still standing.
9.
The Fairy Door Ben Bulben is a fascinating place in Ireland.
It’s a rock formation shaped like a jaw in County Sligo.
It’s a massive piece of rock that was formed during the Ice Age by moving glaciers.
It almost looks like a wave of limestone and mudstone.
And because of its unique appearance, it has been the site of a lot of Irish myths.
One of the legends has something to do with a fairy door.
Now, most people probably don't believe in fairies these days.
But until extremely recently, the Irish certainly did.
Not only did they believe that fairies were real, but they also believed that there was
one place to see them in the human realm: at Ben Bulben.
It was here where the Irish said there was a literal fairy door, a huge black scorch
mark on the northern face of the rock formation that looks exactly like a door.
It was said the fairy door would open on occasion, and that fairies would slip out into the human
world to frolic before going back through the door and closing it behind them.
It was very similar to the beliefs the Irish had about the Samhain festival, or the original
Halloween.
There were certain times and certain places in Ireland where the doorways between the
worlds would open and humans could interact with spirits.
At Ben Bulben, they believed there was a door that allowed them to interact with fairies.
Any Irish people out there please let us know if this is true in the comments below!
8.
The Roman Portal to Hell There is a doorway in modern Turkey that if
you were to walk through it, you would end up dead.
Thousands of years ago in the world of ancient Greece, it was considered a literal gateway
to the depths of hell.
Anyone who got too close to the portal would die, and anyone who wandered through it was
never seen again.
It was so convincingly evil and so obviously dangerous that nobody in the ancient world
had any doubt it led directly down to Hades.
In fact, it became a great place of sacrifice and ritual.
Priests learned exactly how close they could stand to the doors without dying, and they
would sacrifice animals to the lord of the underworld – Hades in the days of the Greeks
and then Pluto in the days of the Romans.
It's not a legend and it's not made up.
It's 100% true.
The fact is that the Roman doorway to hell is actually a man-made gateway to an underground
cavern with significant levels of carbon dioxide.
The gas slips out from the cavern in high concentrations at night and in the early morning,
then dissipates during the day.
You can still see the poisonous gas within the cavern coming out in hot mists.
Thanks to science, we know it's just geothermal activity from the earth.
But to the ancients, it was the toxic breath of the hounds of hell!
7.
The Doorway in King Tut’s Tomb There is a strange doorway in King Tut’s
tomb that experts believe may lead to a totally unexplored burial chamber.
In fact, Egyptian and foreign archaeologists alike believe the chamber beyond the doorway
could lead to the mummy of Queen Nefertiti!
The western and northern walls of the tomb of Tutankhamun may hide burial chambers, according
to a bunch of different sources including the Egyptian state press, and archaeologist
Nicholas Reeves.
Reeves believes the tomb of Tutankhamun, the famous boy pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty who
died around the year 1323 BC, had two doors plastered and then painted over.
His theory is that the doorways, and indeed the entire tomb, was built for Nefertiti and
not for Tutankhamen.
The beautiful Nefertiti was the wife of one of the infamous pharaohs, Akhenaten – and
it’s believed he fathered Tutankhamun with a different woman.
And while the family history of the pharaohs is extremely confusing, so too is the tomb
itself.
The issue is that archaeologists can't simply bust through the walls of one of the most
important tombs in the world on a hunch.
It's just not feasible.
It may have been pillaged after it was originally found in 1922 by Howard Carter, but it can't
be destroyed today.
At least, not until we have overwhelming evidence that the lines in the stone are in fact the
lines of doors, and that beyond them are even greater lost treasures.
What do you think is hiding on the other side of the walls of King Tut's tomb?
Let me know your theories in the comments and don't forget to hit subscribe before the
end of the video!
:)
6.
The Skin Door One of the oldest preserved doors in Britain
is about 950 years old and was once believed to be covered in human flesh!
According to archaeologists, the oak door in Westminster Abbey was put in its current
position sometime in the 1050s, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, the very man
who founded the abbey.
This makes it the only surviving Anglo-Saxon door anywhere in Britain.
It's an astounding piece of history, but it’s also kind of disturbing.
Initial tests on fragments of the door show that it was made of skin.
However, a spokeswoman for the abbey said it was cow hide, not human hide.
The thing is that there's been a legend attached to this door for centuries that says it was
originally bound in the skin of a punished man.
The person from the Middle Ages, had been caught committing sacrilege.
They were flayed, their skin was peeled off of them, and then it was nailed to the door
to deter others from committing sacrilege.
As interesting of a legend as that is, the tests show the door was actually bound in
ordinary cow leather.
Sorry to disappoint!
The door was made from a single tree and its over 6.5 feet(1.9 m) wide.
It opens directly into the Chapter House where monks used to meet for their daily prayers
in the 13th century.
Experts have known this door was old for a long time just by looking at it.
But it's only recently that they figured out how old.
5.
Aramu Muru Aramu Muru is either an abandoned construction
project or a magical doorway to another dimension.
It can't be both.
This place is located on Lake Titicaca, very near to the border with Bolivia.
It was originally found in the 1990s when a mountaineering guide came across it in the
Peruvian countryside.
He found it curious because it appeared to be the wall of some great structure, a completely
flat surface with a small, door-like alcove in its center.
The flat stone is around 23 feet(7 m) and the doorway is just over 6.5 feet(1.9 m).
Nobody can say for certain what the purpose of the doorway ever was.
Archaeologists say it could have just been an architectural flourish, part of an incomplete
Inca construction project.
But at the same time, locals believe the doorway once held great power.
They actually call it Puerta de Hayu Marca, which translates to the Gate of the Gods.
There are stories about people vanishing through the doorway, strange lights coming from it
in the night, and even tall, inhuman creatures slipping through the frame as if from another
dimension.
So, either somebody built this very specifically to be a portal several thousand years ago
– or it’s the entrance to a building that never got finished.
4.
The Lion Gate The Lion Gate is an ancient doorway in Greece
to what was once the fortified citadel of Mycenae.
The doorway is about 10 feet(3 m) wide and 10 feet(3 m) high, guarded by two huge lion
sculptures above its top beam.
Just beyond the door is a small alcove where archaeologists believe the guards once kept
a small pack of dogs to alert them of any intruders.
Thousands of years ago, there was a huge wooden door in the entrance, locked from the inside
with a wooden bar.
The gateway was erected sometime in the 13th century BC and is the only surviving monumental
piece of architecture from the prehistoric Aegean.
It would have been the very first thing someone saw when they approached the walls of the
city.
This was the home of the Mycenaean people, a Bronze Age city-state that lasted until
about 3000 years ago.
The city sheltered beyond the Lion Gate was home to one of the most important Greek civilizations
of the time.
It was a major military stronghold that had control over most of southern Greece.
The city itself had a population of around 30,000 people.
But by the year 1200 BC, earthquakes and invasions had brought the city state down on its head.
All these years later, the only thing left of them are a few broken ruins and the Lion
Gate, the only major piece of their civilization still standing.
3.
The Tomb in the Mountain Just a short drive from the small city of
Corum, in Turkey, there is a great mountain valley.
And on the face of one of these mountains is a mysterious rock doorway that leads to
nowhere.
Almost nothing is known about this strange site, other than that it was most likely made
in the 2nd century BC.
Locals call it the Tomb of Kapilikaya, yet nobody was ever found buried here.
There's a short staircase leading directly up the mountainside to the enormous hanging
door of the tomb.
But the door doesn't swing open – it doesn't actually move at all.
There are gaps on the sides that you can walk around to enter the tomb, which is just a
single spacious chamber.
The actual grave is nothing but a small black niche in the back of the chamber with an inscription
above its entrance.
But nobody knows what the inscription means or who was ever buried here.
There are no guards standing out front to keep visitors from creeping inside and damaging
the place, so it's covered in graffiti.
There's no actual road to get you here either.
It’s one of the most bizarre and forgotten archaeological sites in Turkey, just a huge
door once meant to guard someone’s tomb over 2000 years ago.
2.
Egyptian Doors to the Afterlife In tombs throughout ancient Egypt, there are
strange doors carved into the walls behind where people were laid to mummify in their
coffins.
These false doors are really just artistic representations of doors, either carved or
painted.
They don't actually open, but they were extremely important to the ancient Egyptians.
The false doors that you see in all the most important tombs throughout the kingdom were
thought of as doors to the afterlife.
Each door was carved from a single piece of stone or a large plank of wood.
At the center of the door was a flat niche, with fake door jambs arranged around it to
give the illusion of depth.
It was the closest the Egyptians could get to creating a functioning portal to the beyond.
To the Egyptians, carving a false door in a tomb created a threshold between the world
of the living and the world of the dead.
It allowed the spirit of the deceased to enter and exit at their leisure, passing from the
physical world into the afterlife at a whim.
It was an extremely important architectural design inside a tomb because without it, the
spirit had no logical way of reaching the afterlife.
False doors were also placed inside offering chapels.
In offering chapels, family members could come and pay their respects to their dead
loved ones.
They would place offerings on a stone slab in front of the fake door, for the dead soul
to come pick it up later.
1.
Portals to the Dead Viking homes were very interesting, and are
something you don't really see shown much in the wildly popular Viking TV shows these
days.
We see Viking warriors and obscure political drama – but not the ordinary Viking home
life.
The truth is that the Viking house was an important place for families, and for the
dead.
There's enough archaeological evidence for the experts to say beyond any doubt that the
dead had a major presence in houses all through the Viking Age.
Human bones were frequently embedded in the foundations of houses, with young infants
being buried directly underneath the hearths.
But the most meaningful place to bury a person was underneath the threshold of a house, right
beneath the doorway.
Furthermore, different parts of the home served as different points of contact between those
living in it and those buried underneath it.
Some women were said to be able to actually see into either the future or into another
realm if they were lifted above the front door.
The Vikings believed there was power in putting bones in the threshold, and that those with
the gift could use this power to create a sort of portal to the otherworld.
Do you really believe any of these ancient gateways led to an underworld or some other
dimension?
Let me know your thoughts and theories in the comments and thanks so much for watching!
Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and i’ll see you next time, bye! :)