It's an ancient legend: Located in scattered areas of Earth are openings, doorways, gates, if you will, to some unseen underworld, also variously referred to as hell, Hades and Dante's Inferno.

Researchers exploring the famous Twins Cave outside of Jerusalem have uncovered evidence of some pagan rituals, dating back to the Roman Empire, that suggest people may have believed the cave was a portal to this underworld.

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The idea of some mysterious, menacing dark world of the dead has been written about for as long as humans have speculated about it. Even still, Schowalter says most people don't understand the difference between the terms hell and Hades.

"It's called the realm of Hades, where Hades is the king," he said. "In Greek and Roman conceptions, it's a different understanding than what Christians later developed in terms of hell as a place of punishment.

"Hades was the world of the dead -- the place where the dead lived. The expectation was that when you died, you passed into a different form of life."

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Numerous books, movies and television shows have depicted the dark, shadowy underworld. But is there any truth to the idea that an actual entrance to such a place may someday be discovered?

"My quick answer is no," Schowalter said. "The more interesting thing is that people wanted to have contact with the world of the dead and they did somewhat extreme things and developed rituals in which they thought that they could try to do that."

The whole idea that people in "hell" are being punished for various sins is, according to Schowalter, something that stems from a Christian re-interpretation of that material.

Gateway To Hell: Israeli Scientists Explore Twins Cave For Ancient Door To Underworld