This Church Is Sunken Into The Ground (Ancient Temple Ruin)

Is this how you would imagine what the gate to the netherworld would look like? Well, this is it. For at least 2,500 years, it has been a place of prayer. And you just need to look around to understand why. Spontaneous subsidence of land and other phenomena made this the site of gods. Already worshipped in ancient times, then by Romans and recently by Catholics, this is one of the most fascinating yet mysterious cult sites in all of Italy. This man-made structure reconquered by nature is submerged today and sinking deeper into the ground year by year. But for us, it was just another unexpected roadside find. On our road trip this summer, we explored this place which is most likely the oldest abandoned building we have ever discovered. What has happened? An act of God or the force of nature? Follow us in this video when we enter the ancient temple and try to uncover its secrets. Help us realize more and bigger projects by pledging on Patreon and getting rewards in return. Definitely a really magical place. I haven't seen anything like it yet. I'm checking the pictures again. And yes, you will definitely like it. Are you ready, Drago? This is really the longest abandoned place we have ever visited. Since when was it abandoned? Around 1880. This former house of God lies in ruins today. There is no roof anymore and it has sunken into the ground. Only the monumental limestone facade is still in place. The structure turned into a habitat for new life. And the reason why nature is flourishing here is not only the absence of man but also a spring that emerged right under the building centuries ago and later caused its downfall, literally. This is an area of marshy wetlands. Due to the number of mineral springs and phenomena like spontaneous subsidence of land people from the ancient world were already coming here to pray. They thought this must be a portal to the netherworld. Later, Romans built a temple where the church is located today. The Lord's House itself was constructed in the 14th century and quickly became the most important religious institution of the valley. 150 years ago, it needed to be abandoned. The surreal character of this place not only inspired travelers and adventurers from all around the globe but also filmmakers. We found a movie that was shot here in the 80s and if you see the footage you could think that the spring has almost dried up today. In all the older photos and videos the church was underwater and a stream ran through the entrance portal to flood the surrounding landscape. Somehow this stopped a while back but thanks to that nature could take over entirely. Please understand that we can't share information like the name of this movie or the location of the church in order to protect it. We do not want to turn it into another Instagrammable place that gets overrun. If you are interested in high-resolution images of our explorations you can support us on Patreon where you can get our urbex wallpapers as a digital download. You can also order our urbex calendar for 2021 soon. Stay tuned! It appears like this is still a sacred place today. Locals have built a shrine at the exterior wall since praying inside is not possible anymore. In the 19th century a sinkhole opened up and flooded the church. Just imagine that! This probably happened as a consequence of one of the many earthquakes in this region. Since the building was not safe anymore it needed to be abandoned by the community. It took a whole century of neglect and another devastating earthquake to make the roof fall down in the 1970s. There has never been a real intervention to preserve the building. Even though the site has been sacred for thousands of years already and people think the water must have miraculous healing powers the building itself is deserted and slowly sinking deeper into the ground. Man left but nature arrived. And the site of gods literally became another world. For us it is no time to move on. Initially, we had another destination planned and we just stopped here for the night. The whole region of central Italy is scarred by harrowing earthquakes and you can still find damages in many of the cities. Only a decade ago there was a quake that went down in history and in our next episode we will explore its aftermath. We not only found one house that needed to be abandoned or just two of them or three or four or five In fact, we found a whole medieval town that is eerily empty today. Yes, every single building you can see here is abandoned and all belongings were left behind. Well, let us get to it. There is a lot of film to discover and to research. And we will present all of it in Chapter 5 of our 2020 Italy series. What did you like the most about today's roadside find? It is more mysterious than any other ruin we have found before. To shorten the waiting time for the next video we post on social media every other day. And if you want you can support our project on Patreon. Until next time and keep exploring!