Kecske Hole

The Cave of the Goat Hole is one of Hungary's specially protected caves due to its geological significance and its very valuable vertebrate and arthropod fauna. It is located in the Bükk National Park. Easily accessible, it is a popular hiking destination. In the Bükk Mountains this is the second such cave where successful archaeological excavations have been carried out. The first archaeological finds were uncovered during the excavation of the Diósgyőrtapolcai Cave.

Description

It is located on the northern side of the Spring Valley, west of the centre of Diósgyőr in the outskirts of Miskolc, on the left bank of the intermittent stream, about one kilometre from the city limit and almost 200 m from the King’s Well. About 100 m of it can be walked in street clothing, freely visited, although many accidents have occurred there. The entrance provides shelter for hikers, but further exploration is recommended only with a person holding a caving guide qualification.

It has a large, six‑metre‑high and six‑metre‑wide triangular entrance. The chamber beyond the entrance continues into a narrow, high, progressively narrowing passage. The meandering passage, divided by stalactites and stalagmites, ends in a clayey siphon. The traversable section of the passage system is, in the Bükk region, uniquely known from the spring almost to the water table under Hársas Hill. The elements of the eroded and weathered morphological features are the eroded-edged ripple marks, the meanders, the erosional stalactites and stalactite cuts. There are many stalactite formations, most commonly white as snow and yellow‑brown. No other speleothems are present due to damage. It formed in Upper Triassic limestone. It is a periodically active spring cave.

Among the Bükk region caves, the most significant biological investigations were conducted here. The blind species Gebhardt-vakfutrinka and Anaphtalmus gebhardti, belonging to the futrinkafamily, live here. From Gábor Kolosváry's arachnological research it can be determined that the spider-like fauna is relatively rich. Two cave cross‑spider species, Meta menardi and Meta merianae, are also found in the entrance region. On the wall the harvestman Nemastoma chrysomelas is not rare either. Porhomma proserpina may occur everywhere in the system. Already 45 animal species and plant species became known from this habitat in 1939. It is a highly protected, large‑population bat colony’s favored roost, for example the long‑winged bat. The continuation of its biological study may involve special observations and further discoveries.

The earliest inscription on the cave walls dates from 1918. In its literature the Kecske‑hole also appears under the names Kecske‑cave (Mayerfelsi Maier István 1926), Kecskebarlang (Szeghalmy 1940), Kecskelyuk (Szendrei 1882), Kecskelyukcave (Kadić 1907), Kecskelyuk‑cave (Örvös 1962), Kecskelyuk cave (Kadić 1907) and Kecske‑lyuk Cave (Kordos 1977).

Research History

In the 1882 yearbook of the Carpathian Association of Hungary, a study by Sándor Márki states that about 500 steps from the King‑well toward the É, at the bottom of the Barát forest, a cave entrance 6 m high and 6 m wide (Kecskelyuk) opens. Turning left inside, one can reach a dome covered with soft guano, whose silence was disturbed by Márki Sándor’s shouting, therefore they heard several thousand frightened bats fluttering around them. Beyond the dome the cave continues for about 300–400 steps, narrowing at places and widening enormously at others. Such caves are many in the Bükk Mountains, whose karstic limestone formation is identical to the Torna. János Szendrei first entered it for scientific purposes and in his work *The History of the City of Miskolc and Universal Gazetteer* described that the cavity was traversable in 1874 for 20–25 “öl” in length, but he considered it at least 86 m long. He reported its geographical location and archaeological finds. In 1882 János Szendrei mentioned that a tomb, i.e., a burial chamber, was also found in the cavity system. Between 1891 and 1906 Otto Herman collected spiders there. Gyula Madarász collected bats in the cave in 1894.

In 1906 Károly Papp took photographs of the Kecske Hole and according to him the cave was then 142 m long. The Geological Gazette of the 1907 volume published a study written by Ottó Kadić, which mentions that Ottó Kadić explored the limestone area belonging to the system of the Szinva valley and here, in the Forrás Valley, visited the Kecskelyuk cave. Of the 17 examined caves, 6 caves such as the Kecskelyuk cave were considered most suitable for conducting paleoanthropological and archaeological research. Around 1920 Lajos Bíró and Hugó Diener were here, collecting parasitic mites on bats. Between 1920 and 1931 László Schőnviszky carried out meteorological, i.e., temperature and humidity investigations in the passages, and increased its length by 64 metres. He surveyed this final 64‑metre section. He visited the Kecske Hole several times a year, photographed it, and collected specimens there.

In 1922 Lajos Véghely collected bats (long‑winged bats) in the cave, on which Endre Dudich, who also visited the cave, found two bat species, Nycteribia Schmidli and Penicillidia Conspicua, and in the latter the fungus Helminthophana Nycteribiae. Elemér Bokor was the first to survey the entire cave (1925), and from 1924 he visited it regularly for four years to collect animals. According to István Peregi he prepared a 1:100 scale plan map and section drawings of the 330 m long cave. In 1926 he described the Gebhardt‑vakfutrink discovered in 1924 in the party of Antal Gebhardt. From Elemér Bokor’s collection István Peregi found 17 identified and several unidentified species in the Animal Collection of the Hungarian National Museum. In 1927, during the speleology congress, the German speleologists Hermann Bock and Helmuth Cramer walked through the cave and Helmuth Cramer wrote a geomorphological study of the Kecske‑hole, according to István Peregi also Hermann Bock.