Leány Cave

The Leány Cave was a separate cave, but it is currently part of the highly protected Ariadne cave system, which is the third longest cave in the country. It is located in the Pilis Mountains in the Danube–Ipoly National Park. It is a significant archaeological site. For a time it was the longest cave in the Pilis Mountains and one of the highly protected caves in Hungary.

Description

It is located in the area of Pilisszentlélek. Its main entrance is on the rocky northern side of the Pilis mountain, in the lower zone of the Csévi cliffs. The larger southern opening is the Legény Cave. The smaller northern entrance, located 56 m from the entrance of the Legény Cave, is the Leány Cave. Tourist maps also indicate the locations of the Leány Cave and the Legény Cave.

The cave formed in Upper Triassic Dachstein limestone by dissolution below the water table. Its karst origin cannot be proven. Its passages are labyrinthine, sometimes widening into large chambers, sometimes forming narrow crawlways. Generally it lacks formations, but where they occur there are very varied dripstones and cave pearls. The centers of the cave pearls are formed by bat skulls. Brown cave clay is the primary sedimentary fill. It is also noteworthy that andesite occurs in the cave. The sediments mainly consist of a mass of limestone blocks.

In 1913 the cave was first called Leány Cave in the literature. The cave also appears in the literature under the names Girl Cave (Kordos 1977), Leánybarlang (Barcza, Thirring 1920), Leány barlang (Kadić 1920) and Leány Cave (Kordos 1977). The Leány Cave and the Legény Cave together were referred to in the literature as the Csévi double cave or Chlapec (Horváth, H. Kelemen, Torma 1979).

1871–1924

The 1871 yearbook of the Hungarian Royal Institute of Geology states that there is a cave on the steep northern side of the Hruba Skala at Csév.

According to the book published in 1908 that describes Esztergom county, no traces of cave dwellers were found in Esztergom county because there are no caves that contain evidence that prehistoric people once lived in them. The first settlers came to this region with more advanced needs, and besides tools made of animal bones and antler they also used stone tools. Therefore they were not forced to live in caves or dug-out hollows, but could make tents as well as huts. The caves or dug-out hollows that are still numerous in forests or in remote, hard-to-reach areas and contain traces of human culture could not have been prehistoric dwellings. They were mainly hideouts from the time of the Tatar invasion and Turkish destruction, because the objects found in them cannot be traced back to prehistoric times.

The 1912 Archaeological Bulletin states that during the excavation of Legény Cave it was striking that among the many pottery shards there was only a single clay bead or spindle‑like object and no toy‑like items. Bella Lajos interpreted this as indicating that Legény Cave was mainly inhabited by men. Women and children found shelter in an unnamed cave located 70 m east of it. In that latter cave (which will be described shortly) a number of shallow‑bottomed pottery shards were found. Among them were small vessels and spindles as well. Fragments of large vessels, probably used for holding water, also emerged from here. The amount of bone material was much greater here.

Because of these, it was concluded that in prehistoric times Legény Cave was mainly the domain of men, while the much more difficult to access, hidden cave was mainly the domain of women and children. Whoever wanted to reach the latter first had to pass in front of Legény Cave, where the men's path was blocked. Neither from Legény Cave nor from the unnamed cave was La Tène or Roman pottery found. In the latter, however, a very beautiful and almost completely intact Roman bone comb was found, and in the second trench in front of the entrance to Legény Cave a knee‑fibula was found by Bella Lajosék.

The result of the excavations is that both caves were refuges for the local population in the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Hallstatt period, and again in the Middle Ages. The people of the Hallstatt period lived in them the longest, as evidenced by the many potsherds from that era. Another noteworthy result is that, because of these excavations, some lines in the monograph of Esztergom County can be reassessed, which state that some (who are unaware of the prehistoric state of these caves) say that these caves could not have been inhabited by early humans.

The 1913 Cave Investigation states that at the specialist meeting of the Cave Investigation Section of the Magyarhon Geological Society held on 5 May 1913, Bella Lajos gave a report titled “Archaeological Assessment of the Excavations of Legény and Leány Caves” about the excavations carried out in the spring of the previous year in the aforementioned caves on behalf of the Cave Investigation Committee of the Magyarhon Geological Society together with Ottó Kadić. The excavation carried out in Leány Cave consisted of the examination of material excavated by treasure hunters. The anthropological and prehistoric archaeological finds found therein justify a detailed excavation of the cave.

According to the February 2, 1913 issue of the journal *Esztergom*, the monograph of Esztergom County states that in Esztergom County one cannot stumble upon traces of cave dwellers because there is no cave there that has preserved the traces of the prehistoric man who once lived in it. The opposite of this claim is proven by excavations carried out last year in the Chlapetz Cave and the Anonymous Cave, located above the Csév River on the north side of the Pilis Mountains. On May 5, 1912, the Esztergom tourists were taking a break at the Mexican forest lodge when a cave‑exploration committee sent by the Geological Society arrived from Pilismarót in the company of chief forester Rezső Tirtsch: geologist Ottó Kadić, archaeologist Lajos Bella and Imre Gábor Bekey. The next day they began to examine the caves, which yielded surprising results.