Cennet and Cehennem
Two sinkholes named Heaven and Hell — one descends to a cave church, one holds the dark
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Mersin, Turkey
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Visit essentials
A quick read before you go
- Duration
- 1.5–2 hours for the descent, cave chapel visit, and ascent, with time at the Cehennem rim.
- Access
- Located near Narlıkuyu, approximately 20 km east of Silifke on the coastal road (D400).
Overview
The limestone plateau of Rough Cilicia conceals remarkable voids beneath its surface. At Cennet and Cehennem, two have collapsed into open sinkholes whose contrasting characters have sustained religious interpretation across three thousand years. Cennet — Heaven — is accessible: dense vegetation fills its sheltered microclimate, and 300 stone steps descend to a cave floor where a fifth-century Byzantine chapel still stands. Cehennem — Hell — offers no such invitation.
Its sheer walls drop approximately 128 metres into darkness; no path goes down, and the bottom has never been formally mapped.
Why this place is sacred
Cennet and Cehennem are among the clearest examples in the ancient Mediterranean of a natural phenomenon becoming sacred not through human decision but through inevitability. When you stand at the rim of Cehennem and look down into a darkness that offers no visible floor, it requires no theological framework to understand why humans attributed that void to divine force. The geography itself generates the experience of the sacred.
The Greeks articulated this through the Typhon myth. Typhon — the most powerful challenger Zeus ever faced, a monster of chaos embodying everything prior to cosmic order — was imprisoned precisely here, in this specific darkness, beneath this specific limestone plateau. The underground rivers provided his voice. The gases that occasionally seep from the cave floor were his breath.
The Doric temple on the rim was not built to create sacredness but to manage it: to establish priestly authority over a place that already drew people.
Christianity offered a different but structurally similar reading. The descent into Cennet became an image of spiritual journey — a willing descent into a hidden realm, leading to a chapel where the Virgin Mary held the darkness at bay. The physical act of walking down 300 steps, leaving the bright coastal plateau behind, entering the cool enclosure of the sinkhole, and arriving at the cave chapel performs something that the tradition calls descent and return.
The site invited this interpretation because its geography was already its own theology.
Ancient chthonic sanctuary associated with the myth of Typhon's imprisonment; location of a Hellenistic Doric temple with organised priestly activity evidenced by 130 carved names of religious officials.
Pre-Hellenistic sacred site (nature of use undocumented) → Hellenistic Doric temple on rim of Cennet with organised cult (date uncertain) → 5th-century Byzantine cave monastery and chapel of the Virgin Mary → conversion of temple to church → active Christian pilgrimage site → heritage tourism with continued pilgrimage dimension
Experience and orientation
The site is visible from the road above as a series of collapsed limestone edges. Approach on foot from the entrance, where a path leads first to the rim of Cehennem. Stand here before descending into Cennet. The view into the Cehennem pit is the more unsettling of the two: its walls are near-vertical, no vegetation reaches the bottom, and the light fails before it finds a floor. There is nothing to do here except observe, which is the point.
The descent into Cennet begins at the rim and follows 300 stone steps down a constructed path. The first section is open, with the plateau visible around you; then the sinkhole walls close in, and the vegetation thickens. The temperature drops noticeably. The light changes quality — filtered now through the dense canopy that has established itself in the sheltered microclimate of the sinkhole floor. By the halfway point, the world above has narrowed to a rough circle of sky.
The sound changes too: you are in an enclosed space, and the ambient noise of the coast disappears.
The cave chapel at the base is small — a fifth-century Byzantine construction that fits the scale of the cave entrance rather than attempting grandeur. Inside, the masonry walls, the residual smell of candle smoke, and the quiet create a space that feels genuinely separate from ordinary time. Visitors who are not Christian often sit here for longer than they expect.
The ascent back up the 300 steps is the completion of the journey. The moment when the plateau reappears above the sinkhole walls, and the light and warmth of the open air return, carries the quality of re-emergence that the site's builders understood.
Begin at the Cehennem rim before descending. Then take the 300-step descent into Cennet at a slow pace, pausing at intervals to register the changing light, vegetation, and sound. Allow 20–30 minutes for the cave chapel visit. The ascent is strenuous; allow sufficient time and bring water.
Context and lineage
Greek mythology held that Zeus, after his cosmic battle with the chaos-monster Typhon, imprisoned him beneath this specific limestone plateau before the final imprisonment under Mount Etna. The underground rivers audible in the cave were understood as Typhon's ongoing voice, the seismic and volcanic character of the region as his continuing struggle. The geographer Strabo documented this belief.
The Doric temple built on the rim of Cennet formalised the site's religious standing, with 130 carved names of priests and temple officials demonstrating organised cult activity. In the fifth century, a Byzantine monk named Paulus established a monastery and chapel in the cave at the base of Cennet, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The Hellenistic temple above was converted to a church.
The Turkish names Cennet (the Quranic paradise) and Cehennem (the Quranic hell) were assigned during the Ottoman period, preserving the ancient cosmological duality in a new theological vocabulary.
Prehistoric use (undocumented) → Hellenistic Doric temple on Cennet rim with organised priestly cult → 5th-century Byzantine cave monastery and chapel → conversion of temple to church → Christian pilgrimage site → Ottoman-era name-preservation (Cennet/Cehennem) → contemporary heritage and pilgrimage site
Traditions and practice
The Hellenistic cult at the Doric temple involved organised priestly activity, documented by the 130 names carved into the temple walls — an unusually clear record of who administered this sanctuary. The specific ritual practices are not fully documented, but sacrifice and procession were likely components. In the Byzantine period, the cave monastery functioned as a place of contemplative withdrawal, and the cave chapel hosted liturgical worship.
The cave chapel remains a functioning sacred space visited by Christian pilgrims and curious secular visitors alike. No regular liturgical services are formally scheduled, but candles are lit and prayer offered by those who make the descent. The site functions primarily as a heritage destination with an active pilgrimage dimension.
The contemplative practice this site invites is the practice of descent and return — literal and intentional. Descend the 300 steps with awareness, pausing at intervals to register the transition: the shrinking circle of sky, the thickening vegetation, the drop in temperature, the change in sound. At the cave chapel, sit regardless of your tradition and allow the enclosed quiet to settle. On the ascent, move without haste.
The site asks nothing theological; it asks only that you be present to the threshold experience it offers.
Spend time at the Cehennem rim before or after descending into Cennet. Stand at the edge of the inaccessible pit for several minutes. Its darkness is the site's other half — the half that remains unknown.
Ancient Greek / Typhon Cult
HistoricalCehennem was identified in Greek mythology as the prison of Typhon, the chaos-monster who challenged Zeus. The site held an organised Hellenistic Doric temple on the rim of Cennet, with 130 carved names of religious officials documenting an active cult. Ancient writers including Strabo referenced this site as a mythological portal.
Ritual veneration at the Doric temple; organised priestly cult evidenced by 130 carved official names; the site was understood as a literal access point to the underworld.
Early Christianity / Byzantine Monastic
HistoricalA 5th-century Byzantine monastery and cave chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary was established at the base of Cennet by a monk named Paulus. The Doric temple on the rim was simultaneously converted into a church.
Monastic retreat, liturgical worship in the cave chapel, veneration of the Virgin Mary.
Christian Pilgrimage
ActiveThe cave chapel of the Virgin Mary at the base of Cennet continues to attract Christian visitors who descend the 300 stairs to pray at this ancient sacred space.
Prayer, candle-lighting, veneration of the Virgin Mary, the physical descent as an act of pilgrimage.
Perspectives and open questions
The sinkholes at Cennet and Cehennem have attracted interpretive frameworks from geology, mythology, religious history, and contemporary spirituality, all of which illuminate different aspects of why this particular landform became and remained sacred.
Scholarly perspective
Scholarly analysis identifies the sinkholes as a classical example of natural geological phenomena being incorporated into religious cosmology. The 130 carved names in the Doric temple confirm organised priestly activity of a scale beyond casual local use. The Byzantine repurposing of both the temple (converted to church) and the cave (monastery established) follows the well-documented Anatolian pattern of Christianisation that transformed pagan sacred sites rather than abandoning them. The full mapping of the underground cave system beneath Cennet remains incomplete.
Living and traditional perspectives
The Turkish names Cennet and Cehennem directly preserve Islamic cosmological duality — paradise and hell — demonstrating how the pre-Christian mythological significance survived multiple theological transformations. Each new tradition that encountered the sinkholes read them through its own cosmological vocabulary while recognising the same fundamental duality: a place of descent, a place of darkness, a place that demands interpretation.
Alternative interpretations
Some writers identify the site as one of the Mediterranean world's most authentic chthonic portals, noting that the underground rivers audible from the cave floor, the occasional toxic gas emissions, and the physical experience of descending into the earth correspond not just to Greek underworld mythology but to a broader cross-cultural pattern of cave-descent as sacred journey. The site's geology — karst dissolution over millennia — created a natural initiation landscape before any human religion encountered it.
Open questions
The prehistoric use of the site before the Hellenistic period is entirely undocumented. The full extent and character of the underground cave system beneath Cennet has not been comprehensively mapped. Whether the priests of the Doric temple conducted any rituals involving actual descent into the sinkhole — as distinct from worship at the rim — is unknown.
Plan your visit
Access and arrival
Located near Narlıkuyu, approximately 20 km east of Silifke on the coastal road (D400). Accessible by car or dolmuş from Silifke or Kızkalesi. Entrance fee required. The adjacent Narlıkuyu mosaic museum (featuring the Three Graces mosaic) can be combined in the same visit.
Kızkalesi (~5 km west) offers seaside accommodation options. Silifke (~20 km west) has a wider range of hotels. No accommodation at the site itself.
Respectful visit
Wear comfortable, sturdy footwear suitable for 300 steps. In the chapel, respectful dress is appropriate — no specific religious requirement, but modest clothing as for any sacred space.
Permitted throughout the outdoor site. Inside the cave chapel, photography is permitted but should not disturb those in prayer; avoid flash.
Candles may be lit in the cave chapel. No formal offering tradition otherwise.
Do not attempt to enter or approach the edge of Cehennem without appropriate safety precautions — the rim path provides adequate viewing distance. Follow marked paths in Cennet. Do not disturb or remove any stone or archaeological material.
The 300-step descent and ascent are physically demanding, particularly in summer heat. Do not attempt the descent without adequate water and appropriate footwear. Under no circumstances attempt to enter or approach the Cehennem pit floor — the walls are sheer and the depth lethal. After heavy rain, the steps in Cennet can be slippery. The cave chapel has low ceilings in places.
Location
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Nearby sacred places
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References
Sources consulted for this page. Source categories describe the publication, not a guarantee that every claim is verified. Traditional accounts and outside interpretations may differ.
- 01Cennet and Cehennem - Wikipedia — Wikipedia contributorsencyclopediaCore factual overview of geology, mythology, and structures
- 02Show Caves of Turkey: Cennet ve Cehennem — Showcaves.comSource contextSpeleological and archaeological detail
- 03Heaven & Hell Caves (Cennet & Cehennem), Turkey — Turkey Travel PlannerguidePractical visitor information
- 04GPS coordinates of Cennet and Cehennem, Turkey — latitude.toSource contextCoordinates source: 36.4525°N, 34.1056°E
- 05The Caves of Heaven and Hell in Turkey — Destinations in TurkiyeguideDetailed description of mythological and physical features
- 06Believe It Or Not, These Two Large Turkish Sink Holes Even Have The Ruins Of A Monastery In Them — The TravelguideGood overview of Byzantine monastery remains and geological features
- 07Cennet ve Cehennem [Heaven and Hell] Ancient Temple - The Megalithic Portal — The Megalithic PortalspiritualDocuments the ancient Doric temple on the rim with inscribed names of religious officials
- 08Heaven and Hell Sinkholes & Where are they and How to Get There? — Unique MersinguideLocal guide with access details
- 09Cennet ve Cehennem Caves: Exploring the Mystical Sinkholes of Mersin — Ozdemir HalitguideVisitor experience description
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