The mystery of the Sibyl's Cave In Cuma (Italy)
In Cuma, in the Campi Flegrei area in the province of Naples, there is a mysterious tunnel dug into a mountain which presents disconcerting analogies with the Mayan pyramid of Palenque
In tourist terms, the Sibyl's Cave is a renowned archaeological site located on the summit of a volcanic hill.
This site is the acropolis of Cumae, in Pozzuoli, in the province of Naples. It is significant not only because it is the oldest Greek colony in Italy, with origins dating back to the 9th-8th centuries BCE when a colony of Chalcidians from the island of Euboea settled in an area already inhabited by more primitive indigenous populations. Another reason for the site's importance is the so-called Sibyl's Cave, the place where the Cumaean Sibyl delivered her prophecies.
This enigmatic trapezoidal cave is believed to be the residence (or "workplace") of the famous Cumaean Sibyl, dedicated to the god Apollo. It is said that this ancient priestess, whose origins are lost in myth, predicted the future by responding enigmatically and ambiguously to the questions posed by ancient warriors, both Greek and Roman, before they went to war. It is no coincidence that the term "sibylline" derives from her.
Officially, the gallery was created by the ancient Greeks and later by the Romans in two periods: the first between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, when the gallery and the oracle's chamber were carved into very hard tuff; and later, in the 4th-3rd centuries BCE, it was modified and expanded.
Another hypothesis suggests that the cave originated in more recent times, as some archaeologists claim it was excavated during World War II to be used as a bunker or ammunition depot. However, one might wonder: whether it was the Romans or the Nazis, why go to the trouble of carving it in a trapezoidal shape instead of a simple rectangular cross-section? Certainly, looking at the Cave as a whole, it does not have much of the Roman architectural style! In fact, a careful analysis reveals a surprising similarity with the gallery leading to the famous tomb under the Mayan pyramid of King Pacal in Palenque, Mexico.
This in itself would be astonishing; however, this is not the only example, as there are other archaeological sites worldwide that show similarities to this monument. For instance, we can recall the trapezoidal doors of the Etruscan tombs in Tuscany and Lazio (Italy), also quite mysterious, or even the megalithic walls of the Inca people in Cusco and Ollantaytambo in Peru. It is quite strange, considering that all these ancient civilizations were thousands of kilometers apart but shared such a peculiar feature as the "trapezoidal door."
Even today, we are still trying to understand the true meaning of this type of geometry in ancient architecture. Many hypotheses have been proposed by official science to explain what this Cave really was, who built it, its function, and the reason for its shape. Some suggest it represents the union of the masculine (square shape) with the feminine (triangular shape), while others support the idea of man's ascent towards celestial perfection. We don't know for sure; there is no definitive proof.
Upon entering the cave, which is five meters high, two and a half meters wide, and approximately 131 meters long, you notice nine trapezoidal openings on the right wall. At a certain point, there is a deep imprint of a hand carved into the rock. Toward the middle of the corridor on the left, there is a square-shaped opening with three arms arranged in a cross, also trapezoidal. These three openings are located lower down and are accessed by small staircases on the left of each room, which are now blocked. At the end of these rooms, there are basins that vaguely resemble sarcophagi but are much smaller in size. A little further along, still on the left, there is what appears to be a small room just a few square meters wide and about 1.60 meters high, with a sort of very singular stone corner "sofa" inside.
Reaching the end of the gallery, you enter a square room through a round arch. Immediately on the left, through another round arch but lower than the previous one, is what should be the oracle's room, also with three round arches arranged in a cross. A person entering the first room and looking towards the oracle immediately gets the impression of being in front of an antechamber, and that the gallery continues through these three doors.
However, one quickly realizes that these doors are blocked, as if huge cubic blocks were obstructing access. It seems strange that after such a long journey, the cave suddenly ends in what should be the oracle room, only a few square meters wide. If you look carefully, the three doors do not appear to be dug into the rock; instead, it looks like three boulders block the entrances, with two deep grooves engraved on the central one.
Other oddities can be noticed along the corridor: there are holes about ten centimeters wide on both sides of the walls, as if beams had crossed the passage from one side to the other, while small niches occasionally open on the left wall. Finally, the sides of the cave have a sort of step, as if something was resting on it.
As mentioned before, the shape of Pacal's sarcophagus cave is very similar to the Sibyl's Cave, including the "step" on the bottom wall. In Pacal's cave, the slab covering the king's sarcophagus rests precisely on these protrusions. This suggests that something similar, such as plates, could have been placed in the center of the gallery, perhaps along the entire corridor. But if that were the case, and considering that the Cavern wasn't a tomb, what purpose could they have served? And in the oracle's room with the three doors, if these were doors, what could they be hiding behind them? Perhaps some secret chamber or even other corridors leading who knows where. Possibly, they could be the famous access to the underworld that the poet Virgil describes in his famous Aeneid.
The entire Campi Flegrei area is connected to the myth of the underworld and Hades. According to classical literature, the nearby Lake Avernus concealed the entrance to Tartarus, the afterlife of the Greco-Roman peoples. It is no coincidence that Virgil sends his hero Aeneas here to meet his father Anchises in the Elysian Fields. It is also noteworthy that below the level of the Cave lies the Roman Crypt, an incredible example of underground architecture and engineering that connects the Cumae area to Lake Avernus, joining the Cocceio Cave. The tunnel has been explored for 180 meters, but it might continue further beyond the debris, remaining unexplored.
Cumae is an amazing and otherworldly place, but there is another very famous site featuring trapezoidal architecture. This unusual style is found inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, in the silhouette of the Grand Gallery. And that's not all: in the Queen's Chamber, there is a sort of trapezoidal door on the wall formed by the same boulders as the pyramid. This door has similarities with another one found in a Mayan archaeological site at Xochicalco in Mexico.
We immediately wonder how it is possible that all these ancient cultures had the same type of architecture and what the trapezoidal shape could signify. What could connect Cuma with the Maya, Egyptian, and Inca cultures? This suggests that there might have been a single very ancient or even antediluvian culture that created the same type of architecture in all these places around the world, a megalithic architecture built by a technologically advanced civilization; once again, this leads us to think of the civilization of Atlantis. It is said that the Etruscans descended from the inhabitants of the mythical continent, and the same is said, coincidentally, of the Maya, Egyptians, and Incas. These ancestors probably arrived in the Cumae area after the Flood.
Considering this possibility and why the cave was dug here, it is noteworthy that a few kilometers west of the archaeological complex lies the island of Ischia. As mentioned in our previous article on the Hollow Earth, one of the entrances to the underground world of Agharti, also linked to the people of Atlantis, is said to be located there. In the Campi Flegrei region, there is a legend about the mysterious people of the Cimmerians, also mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey. These people were connected to the subterranean Flegrean world, ancient inhabitants of the Cumaean area who lived underground long before the Greeks and Romans arrived. Strabo also mentions them, describing them as a population living in "houses beneath the ground called argillae, and through tunnels, they visited one another" – a type of dwelling that recalls the Anasazi Indians of the United States and the fairy-tale cities of Cappadocia in Turkey – and that the ancients identified with the dead emerging from Hades.
Therefore, it is probable that these people, perhaps entering through the Sibyl's Cave or a nearby place, reached Ischia and from there, who knows, went to the center of the Earth, to Agharti. Perhaps behind the mysterious doors of the oracle lies one of the entrances to this enigmatic underground world.
