Well of Barhout

Al-MaharaYemen

4 June

Does the well that sits in the middle of the desert house some evil genies?

This place certainly has some crazy folklore surrounding it, but what really lives at the bottom of this seemingly bottomless hole?

The mystery surrounding the Well

Today we may have ourselves a shorter destination episode, but it’s by no means any less fascinating.

Officially known as the Well of Barhout, but occasionally goes by the ‘Well of Hell’, is an intriguing natural formation that is surrounded by local folklore. You’ll find this unique well in the Al-Mahrah province of Yemen, not really all that far from the border with Oman. Not a major tourist attraction, Yemen has had its fair share of being in the spotlight. But the events surrounding the Well of Barhout really had part of the world looking on in awe as to what explorers would find.

The well itself, is like most wells in that it is a deep dark hole in the ground. It’s just that this hole is in the middle of the desert and is about 30 metres wide. Now I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but that’s a pretty big hole. If that didn’t impress you, perhaps this will; it’s thought that the well is between 100 and 250 metres deep. Now that’s a deep hole in the desert, some might even refer to it as a pore in the Earth’s surface.

Modern science tells us that the Well of Hell is nothing but you’re average natural sinkhole, and we’ll get more into sinkholes in a minute, but those who live near the well are convinced that it was created with the purpose of housing evil spirits. And I can see how they came to that conclusion. A hole just sitting in the middle of nowhere, it definitely has an ominous feel to it, if I do say so myself.

Local folklore will tell us that it was created as a prison for demons, and this lore was all but confirmed when a gross foul odour could be smelt coming up from the hole. Everyone knows that imprisoned demons stink to high heaven.

But this hole, that has oddly appeared out of nowhere, is really nothing but your typical sinkhole. Yeah it may look a bit weird. A black mark on the desert some might say, especially when seen from above. Check it out on Google Maps for yourself. It certainly is a pitch black hole. But regardless of how creepy or eerie it looks, scientists are telling people that supposedly it is in fact possible to find a perfectly round, exceptionally deep sinkhole in the middle of the desert.

In fact, here’s a sinkhole expert out of the University of South Florida, who goes by Phillip van Beynen, to tell us what he knows about sinkholes:

There are different types of sinkholes. The most common are collapse and subsidence sinkholes.

Fascinating stuff.

And I’m not being sarcastic there, it really is fascinating. Because collapse sinkholes are formed when caves are created underground so large that there’s no longer anything supporting the ground above and the rock and sediment all of sudden collapse into the cave. Whereas subsidence sinkholes occur more gradually, when sediments sitting close to the surface slowly trickle down into an underground void slowly creating a depression in the ground before a sinkhole opens up.

Both of these types of sinkholes rely on a specific type of landscape which is largely made up of carbonate bedrock like those of limestone and dolomite, which of course we know is soluble in water, which pretty easily gets you a cave or a spring and then through the power of erosion a sinkhole.

Although Beynen says it’s actually surprisingly difficult to tell what kind of sinkhole a sinkhole is:

Unless it occurs when people live at the site and record the event, then it’s almost impossible.

Right, well then. I guess the origins of the sinkhole are still a mystery. Which, rightly so, leaves the door open to the local legend for its purpose, and if we’re being honest, creation.

Now there’s a couple of legends floating around out there that concern themselves with the Well of Barhout, but all of them pretty much contain the same sort of information. Their basic gist is that the well was built to contain the jinn, basically evil genies. Some even have these evil and uncontrollable jinn being forced to carve the well that they will then be imprisoned in. Here’s a pretty good description of what jinn are:

Jinn are shape-shifting spirits made of fire and air with origins in pre-Islamic Arabia.

When I hear ‘shape-shifting spirts made of fire and air’, I certainly don’t think they’re something that’s meant to be trifled with. Although then again from the jinn we do get the good version of genies, and through the development of this pre-Islamic Arabian spirit we can definitely see some inspiration for Aladdin’s Genie, although I don’t think any jinn were ever as funny as Robbin Williams.

This local myth of the well being a prison cell for demonic spirits, meant that many of the locals weren’t too eager to get anywhere resembling close to the well. And those who live nearby, have long held the belief that if anything gets even remotely close to the opening the jinn trapped inside would suck them in and they would never be able to escape.

Here's what Yemeni oral tradition, which has of course been passed down for centuries, says about the well:

A prison of dark spirits sheltered by unbearable odours that came from its entrails.

How visual.

Although the stories have of course grown from your stock standard jinn prison cell to more of those resembling the gates of hell.

And so I can see why many of the residents in the area really sort of go out of their way to avoid visiting this part of the desert. You don’t want to come home with a jinn or demon now do you.

And it’s not only the visits, a lot of the locals even avoid talking about it all together, for fear of bad luck or ill fortune attaching itself to them.

Here’s Mohammad al-Kindi, a geology professor from the German University of Technology in Oman, telling us what he heard from the locals:

Yes, [locals] always told us about [the legends]. They also mention wild animals. They mentioned strange voices or people screaming below. They mentioned also the air there is really bad. You will not be able to breathe.

Good grief, I can certainly see why one would want to avoid that part of the desert in general.

And yet, despite all of these warnings from the locals in the old stories, Al-Kindi didn’t seem at all perturbed to be the first person who would descend to the bottom of the well, and hopefully, fingers crossed, make it back up out again.

Now before Al-Kindi headed down into the hole, Yemeni officials even admitted that they themselves had no clue what lay at the bottom of the pit, if there was a bottom at all. They reckon that the well could be millions and millions of years old, and yet no one had gone down to the bottom and lived to tell about the adventure.

Even Salah Babhair, the director general of Mahra’s geological survey and mineral resources authority said this about the place:

These places require more study, research and investigation.

And ‘study, research and investigate’ is what they set to work to do.

Descending into the Well

Okay so a group of Omani cavers, stepped up and braved the depths of this pitch black unknown hole in order to be the first people known to descend to the bottom and come the whole way back out.

Now I’m afraid that their discoveries just might be a little anticlimactic, and they reportedly didn’t find any signs of anything supernatural, now that’s what I call disappointing. Although they did make a few interesting discoveries.

Now up until this point, people had gone partly down into the hole, but no one had made it right down to the bottom, probably because it’s a pretty deep hole, and one can only carry so much rope.

Here’s Salah Babhair again to tell us what the preparation was like:

It’s very deep – we’ve never reached the bottom of this well, as there’s little oxygen and no ventilation.

Well, now, that right there could account for the bad smell and maybe why things generally don’t make it back out.

Now Babhair was part of the team that had previously gone partly down into the well, but only partly.

We have gone to visit the area and entered the well, reaching more than 50-60 metres down. We noticed strange things inside. We also smelled something strange…It’s a mysterious situation.

And I’m sure it bloody well was a mysterious situation. Although it is likely that the weird smell was more from dead animals that had fallen in than anything to do with evil spirits.

Now our mate, Al-Kindi was part of the team of about eight experienced cavers from the Oman Cave Exploration Team (OCET) that made it right down to the bottom of the well in 2021.

Passion drove us to do this, and we felt that this is something that will reveal a new wonder and part of Yemeni history.

They were even able to capture some footage of the descent which showed water dripping and grey and lime-green cave pearls.

Here’s Al-Kindi again, telling us what we can see in the descent footage:

Cave pearls are concentric calcium carbonate deposits that form around nuclei falling water. These rings are smoothed by the movement of water falling for thousands of years until they form beautiful pearl shapes.

Right, so at least we know that this cave that supposedly is the reason for the sinkhole has been down here for thousands of years.

But what exactly did Al-Kindi and his team find down there, at the bottom of the deep hole? Anything resembling evil genies?

There were snakes, but they won’t bother you unless you bother them… It also has its own kind of ecosystem… We collected samples of water, rocks, soil and some dead animals but have yet to have them analysed… There were dead birds, which does create some bad odours, but there was no overwhelming bad smell.

Well that’s interesting, not terribly exciting, but certainly interesting, and a little terrifying. I’m imagining a massive snake pit at the bottom, just covered in slithering snakes. No thankyou.

And it’s interesting that Al-Kindi wasn’t too concerned about the bad smell, perhaps the day he went down the well was a good sniff day.

Spending about six hours in the cave, Al-Kindi was able to have a real good look around. And he, and his team, discovered that the length of the well was actually only about 112 metres deep and passed through two layers of rock. The top layer of ‘porous and permeable’ rock, roughly about 60 metres thick, was potentially what allowed water to filter through down to the second, less permeable layer, that then flows right down into the cave, creating a 45 metre waterfall on its way.

Now of course, some just couldn’t understand a hole in a desert landscape like this couldn’t have something mysterious and bad about it. So there were questions about if the water is poisonous or not. To this question Al-Kindi reportedly just laughed:

Well, apparently not. I’m still alive… I also took samples and analysed it with some colleagues in one of the local universities here in Oman. It’s very fresh, very normal water.

Well, seeing as though he did drink at least a whole bottles worth of the stuff, I guess the bloke must be right. The water’s fine.

The footage, which can be seen here for those who would like to see it for themselves without travelling all the way to Yemen and then being lowered down a very deep hole, shows something that is actually quite incredibly beautiful. I mean you can see just how natural the whole place looks, just like any other cave really. There’s nothing scary down there, surely.

What’s actually pretty interesting to see and think about, is that the landscape of the cave is amazingly pristine, because no one’s gone down there before, there was absolutely no evidence of humans, just all purely natural.

Although Al-Kindi says that we can’t know for certain whether or not people had been down there in the centuries before and it just hasn’t been recorded:

There were no footprints or other signs of disturbances. None of the prior missions there have been documented so it’s unclear whether anyone had actually gone down there, although it’s difficult to be 100% certain.

Going down into the Well yourself

So now what if watching the footage wasn’t enough for you and you want to go and see the bottom of the well for yourself? Well, firstly I would definitely reconsider. Like much of the Middle East, it’s not generally advised that you travel to Yemen at the time of recording. Although you could enjoy a trip to Oman if that’s on your bucket list. Except its generally advised that you do avoid the border with Yemen, so it does seem as if a trip to the Well of Barhout may need to wait until things settle down a bit, whenever that will be.

But what a fascinating place to learn a little bit more about, even if we can’t visit ourselves.

I’m not sure about you, but a part of me is a little disappointed that there were no jinn found at the bottom of the Well of Hell, but then again I am glad that the caving team aren’t being tormented and followed around by evil genies. You’ve gotta take what you can get I guess.