Kapolcsi Pokol Hole

Kapolcsi Pokol is among the specially protected caves of Hungary. It formed in basalt. Among the pottery shards found in the cave, the oldest are late Bronze Age pieces, therefore the cave has been known for at least 3000 years. Its first written mention comes from 1610, which reports George Thurzó's cave visit.

Description

It opens at the border of Kapolcs, in the rock cleft of Bondoró Hill (DK). The cave’s triangular mouth, 4.5 m high and 3.5 m wide, is followed by the gradually lowering main branch 24 m long. On the ceiling of the main branch a fracture is clearly visible along which the rock slab forming the left wall of the cave has detached and slid downwards. The ceiling fracture branches in a Y shape near the middle of the cave, and accordingly the main branch of the cave shows a longer forward continuation and a shorter left‑hand branch. The cave’s length is 56.8 m.

The cave formed entirely in basalt. In the middle phase of the former volcanic activity a large‑mass but thinner, 20–30 m thick, nearly horizontal lava sheet covered the previously scattered volcanic ash layer on the Pannonian limestone surface. The remnant of the basalt sheet forms the lower, plateau‑like part surrounding the Bondoró summit region. Over millions of years of erosion, increasingly larger portions of the basalt sheet’s edge have broken off. The fragmentation in some cases occurred as huge, still attached slabs. The detachment and partial sliding of such a larger edge piece created Kapolcsi Pokol.

The caves thus formed are, among post‑genetic caves in volcanic rock, tectonically formed mass‑movement caves along a fracture parallel to the edge.

The cave occurs in its literature as Bondoró-cave, Kapolcsi-basalt cave, Kapolcsi Pokol-lik (Kordos 1984), Kapolcsi Pokollik (Bertalan 1938), Kapolcsi rock cavity (Kordos 1984), Kapolci-Devil’s Hole-cave (Gazdag 1990), also under the names Pokol-lik and Pokol-hole.

Research history

The cave has a wide entrance, spacious interior, and drinkable water springs from it, so it is almost natural that it has been known as a cavity since the beginning of historic times. It was used as a water source, shelter and perhaps a hunting ground. The latest pottery fragments and local narratives also show that it was considered a valued water‑taking place and still is today.

János Oláh mentioned in his description of the cave that during the Turkish war the entire population of Kapolcs found refuge here. Of course the village population was then much smaller. In 1939 Károly Bertalan searched for archaeological finds in the cave and made a map of the cave. In the main branch of the cave he dug a trial pit 1.4 m deep, but no palaeontological or archaeological finds were uncovered. The Bakony guidebook published in 1950 describes the cave. The book *Caves of Hungary* published in 1984, which contains a national cave list, includes the cave under the name Kapolcsi Pokol-lik with the variant name Kapolcsi rock cavity. Associated with the list is a 1:500 000 scale map showing the geographical location of the caves of Southern Bakony, the Balaton Highlands and the Keszthely Mountains, indicating the geographical location of the cave.

According to the 1984 publication Lista a Bakony barlangjairól, the Kapolcsi Pokol-lik is located in Kapolcs in Southern Bakony, in the 4430 cave catastrophe region. The volcanic-origin cave is 47 m long and 5 m high. In 1986, 79 pottery fragments were found on the surface leading into the main branch and the side branch by Eszterhás István. At first glance the pottery pieces could be grouped into three periods. A detailed examination was not carried out because they were lost in the István Király Museum in Székesfehérvár. The oldest pieces appeared to be from the Late Bronze Age; these were thick‑walled black pottery pieces, both unglazed and glazed. The assemblage also contained early medieval, unglazed, red, glazed pieces. The youngest were partially glazed, partially unglazed pieces, as well as painted vessels and jugs.

In 1987 István Eszterhás studied the cave in detail. In the manuscript titled *List of Non‑Karst Caves of Hungary* written by István Eszterhás in 1989 it is stated that it formed in the basalt of Pokol‑lik in Kapolcs in the Bakony Mountains (in the cave‑cadastral area 4430 and the cave‑cadastral area 4461). The cave is 51 m long and 4.5 m high. The list mentions the 220 objects (203 caves and 17 artificial cavities) that were created in non‑karst rock in Hungary and became known by the end of 1989. Forty caves have formed in basalt in Hungary. According to the compilation, 119 such caves that originated in non‑karst rock are listed in László Kordos’s cave list published in 1984. In the special 1989 issue of *Karst and Cave* an English‑language study (*The caves of Hungary*) states that the best examples of basaltic, tectonic‑origin caves are found in the Bakony Mountains. One such example is the 51 m long Pokol‑lik on Mount Bondoró. In 1990 the Alba Regia Cave Research Group had a research permit for the investigation of the cave.