Where is tartarus

Home » Tartarus. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. Read more on our privacy policy here. Cookie Settings Accept All. Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.

Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website.

These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Necessary Necessary. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.

These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".

The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".

It does not store any personal data. Functional Functional. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Performance Performance.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Analytics Analytics. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website.

Mark Twain, best known for his novels, was also among the most quotable writers of his time. Among his memorable quotes is one that may be particularly relevant to unveiling the true nature of the underworld:.

There are several advantages to this interpretation of the underworld. Firstly, there is strong evidence suggesting that a dry and habitable, below-sea-level basin did exist contemporaneously with behaviorally modern man , namely the Caribbean.

Thirdly, I shall demonstrate that an underworld that is a below-sea-level basin instead of an underground realm naturally and elegantly accounts for the transformation of Hades from a land of the living to the land of the dead. Finally, the Caribbean Basin contains within it a trench that strongly resembles a certain primordial abyss that features prominently in many Greek myths. In the Odyssey , a myth dating back to the Heroic Age of Greece, Homer portrays the underworld as a gloomy realm of deceased spirits and shades.

However, in myths that depict events taking place in the distant past, Hades is described as an abode of the living. For example, in the myth of the Titanomachy, or the war between the Titans and the Olympians, Zeus, son of Kronus, rebelled against his father and the Titans, the elder race of Gods, and emerged victorious in a ten-year-long war.

Upon his victory, Zeus imprisoned the defeated Titans in Tartarus. There is no mention of spirits, shades, and ghosts in this version of Hades, and if Hesiod had called Hades and Tartarus by another name, one would hardly suspect that the setting of this war between the Titans and the Olympians was in any way a spiritual realm.

Fall of the Titans, In another myth, Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was out gathering flowers when Hades, the lord of the Underworld, ascended to the earth to carry her off to his realm, where he made her his queen. Demeter, in her grief at losing her daughter, sent a famine across the earth. At this point, Zeus intervened and sent Hermes, the messenger god to the underworld to secure the release of Persephone.

Later on, he declared that Persephone would spend part of the year with Hades in the underworld and the rest of the year with her mother Demeter on Mount Olympus. Clearly in this myth Hades is portrayed as a real and physical land, suitable for habitation, instead of as a land of the dead.

However, in the Odyssey, as was said earlier, Hades is portrayed as a land not of the living, but a land of the dead. The Return of Persephone. Could it be that this transformation of Hades from a realm of the living to the realm of the dead in mythology and literature corresponds to a very real change in the physical realm? If Hades, or the Greek underworld and the Caribbean Basin were one and the same, this dramatic shift in the way Hades is depicted finds a natural explanation — it was a land of the living before the cataclysm that formed the Caribbean Sea and became the land of the dead afterward.

Interpreted in this way, Hades was originally a real and physical place that suffered a terrible cataclysm in which innumerable souls actually met their demise.

Over time, with the passage of generations, the true nature of Hades as the resting place of the souls that perished in this cataclysm was forgotten, and became corrupted into the final resting place of all souls.

The possible locations of Tartarus and Hades. Map Credit: Google Earth, But even if it is granted that Hades was indeed a below sea level basin, how can one definitively establish that Hesiod was referring specifically to the Caribbean Basin, as opposed to other below sea level basins that may have existed in the remote past?

Hesiod also provides an interesting description of this mysterious realm of Hades. Namely, he situated Tartarus, the primordial abyss or chasm in which Zeus imprisoned the defeated Titans, within Hades, and said that an anvil dropped from the earth would take nine days to fall to Hades, and another nine to finally reach Tartarus.

Also, in the Iliad , Zeus asserts that Tartarus is as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth. The question that naturally follows is whether this basin contains within it a place that is especially low. Indeed, it most certainly does, for it contains within it a trench that is thousands of feet deeper than the average depth of the basin - the Cayman Trench.

The Cayman Trench reaches a maximum depth of over 25, feet meters whereas the average depth of the Caribbean Basin is just over 7, feet meters. Not only is Tartarus analogous to the Cayman Trench in its exceeding depth, it is also described as, quite literally, a chasm and an abyss by none other than the great philosopher Plato, which is essentially identical to a trench.

Plato, in his Phaedo , writes:. For all the rivers flow together into this chasm and flow out of it again; and each becomes such, as the earth through which it also flows.

Water pours down over a rocky ledge and into valley basin below. Could it be that Hades was not only transformed from an abode of the living to the abode of the dead by a terrible cataclysm, but that Hades was also, prior to the cataclysm, a veritable paradise? That is, might Heaven have become Hell? Strangely enough, the garden also closely resembles the geography of the Caribbean Basin. The Garden of Hesperides, guarded by the serpent.

As was demonstrated in a previous article , a dry Caribbean Basin could have existed only if there had been continuous chain of land rising uniformly above sea level forming a barrier, a giant earthen dam so to speak, to keep the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at bay. Could such a profound similarity between the Caribbean Basin and the Gardens of Hesperides, be dismissed as mere coincidence? When Christopher Columbus set foot on the South American mainland on his third voyage near the mouth of the Orinoco River, he believed that he had found the Garden of Eden, the lost paradise.

Perhaps the Admiral of the Ocean Sea was not far off the mark after all, and more besides, perchance he found not only The Garden of Eden, but also Hades itself…. Cronus and many of the other Titans were banished to Tartarus, though Prometheus , Epimetheus , Metis and most of the female Titans were spared. And in some accounts, Cronus somehow later earned Zeus' forgiveness and was released from Tartarus to become ruler of Elysium. Another Titan, Atlas , was sentenced to hold the sky on his shoulders to prevent it from resuming its primordial embrace with the Earth.

Other gods could be sentenced to Tartarus as well. Apollo is a prime example, although Zeus freed him. The Hecatonchires became guards of Tartarus' prisoners. Later, when Zeus overcame the monster Typhon, he threw him into "wide Tartarus".

Originally, Tartarus was used only to confine dangers to the gods of Olympus. In later mythologies, Tartarus became the place where the punishment fits the crime.

The rivers of the Underworld also ran through Tartarus, these rivers were:. The Underworld is considered to be a dark and gloomy counterpart to the bright and happy Mount Olympus. As to also which, Mount Olympus is the realm of the gods whereas the Underworld is the realm of the dead.

Ixion ,the king of Lapiths resided on Mount Olympus for a short time before he fell lustful for Zeus ' wife, Hera , so Zeus banished him to Tartarus, which is down in the underworld and he was bind to a winged fiery wheel by Hermes that was always spinning. Tartarus has been in plenty of movies in our generation Greek Myth Wikia Explore. Greek Mythology.