Cehennemağzı Mağaralarıvisitor guide.

Karadeniz Ereğli is not only an ancient city whose history extends back to 2500 BC; Ereğli also stands at a crossroads of Anatolian civilizations spanning millennia. So much so that Ereğli is counted among cities where Greek mythology's most striking events unfolded. Homer, in his famed epic the Iliad, recounts that the Zonguldak shores including Ereğli were home to Anatolian volunteer soldiers who joined the legendary Trojan War (1200 BC). The tale of Hercules (Heracles) capturing Cerberus, the three-headed monster hound guarding the gates of the underworld—one of Greek mythology's most dramatic tales—also takes place in Ereğli. According to Greek myth, Cehennemağzı (Mouth of Hell) is in Ereğli. Millennia after this mythological explanation, the discovery in 1829 of burning stones or coal in Ereğli is intriguing in its underworld connotations. Ereğli took its name from Hercules. Cerberus, whom Heracles encountered upon descending into the realm of the dead, is the guardian of the underworld. He prevents the living from entering and forbids dead spirits from departing. When Hercules dragged Cerberus up to the earth's surface, it is said that wherever his saliva dripped onto the ground, the poisonous plant Aconite (monkshood) sprang forth. Some call this weed leopard's bane. The Olympian deities Athena and Hermes provided Heracles with the mask of invisibility stolen from Hades, enabling him to enter the realm of the dead unseen. (It is said that illicit excavations in the Acheron valley uncovered a marble mask fitting a human face, kept until the 1980s in the home of an elderly citizen in Karadeniz Ereğli.) When the Olympian gods divided the world, Homer writes in the Iliad as Poseidon speaks: 'The world was divided into three, each received his share, lots were cast, the foaming sea fell to me.. The kingdom of misty shadows fell to Hades' share..' Hades is the god of the realm of the dead. His name means the unseen. Hades never leaves his domain and joins no revels like other deities. Only once a year does he journey to Mount Olympus to visit the god Paeon for health checkups.. Participating in the Argonauts' voyage, demigod Heracles entered the underworld upon reaching the Acheron to rescue Theseus, freeing his comrade and dragging Cerberus up to the earth. Hesiod, antiquity's first poet born a century after Homer (8th c. BC), describes Cerberus: 'Echidna bore yet another ferocious monster, the unspeakable Cerberus of Hades, that hound of bronze voice and fifty heads, that relentless predatory beast.' DOWNLOAD MUSEUM BROCHURE NEARBY MUSEUMS FILYOS TIOS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE KARADENİZ EREĞLİ MUSEUM MINING MUSEUM SARIKAYA ROMAN BATH