Timeline for What is the first instance of a portal to another world?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
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| Feb 15, 2015 at 3:23 | comment | added | Questioner |
Fair enough. :). Divine Comedy does bear mention as a point on the timeline of how fiction and myth evolved along with our sense of what dimensions and magical realms are.
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| Feb 14, 2015 at 17:15 | comment | added | user31178 | I understand. I didn't expect this to be the answer, but I couldn't let Divine Comedy not be mentioned. | |
| Feb 14, 2015 at 16:48 | comment | added | Questioner | My point is exactly that, though, that our modern interpretations assume portals because of how we now conceive the relationship between our world and that of magical realms. But around the time of Dante's writing, it seems they literally thought of heaven as somewhere up above, and hell as literally somewhere below. By the quotes you describe, the cave in Dante's Inferno doesn't behave any differently than another cave, it just contains the levels of hell the same way another regular cave would contain bats and moss. | |
| Feb 14, 2015 at 15:50 | comment | added | user31178 | I guess that depends on your interpretation. They're going to Hell, which I interpret as not in the same dimension. If you read all the Cantos, there are 9 levels and some of them are gigantic, which also doesn't make sense to be just underground (even though it's supposed to feel below Earth) | |
| Feb 14, 2015 at 8:29 | comment | added | Questioner | Thank you for this suggestion. However, unless I am mistaken, the area within the cave exists spatially within the same dimension as the area outside the cave. To count as a "portal", it is not sufficient to have a gateway, or a magical place. The place you go to must also not occupy any area within the same dimension as the place you come from. Also note, myths are fine - the Fauna of Mirrors is simply not old enough, having no record going back beyond the 1950s. | |
| Feb 14, 2015 at 5:16 | history | answered | user31178 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |