Nászút Cave

The Nászút Cave is one of the caves located in the Aggtelek National Park. Together with the other caves of the Aggtelek Karst and the Slovak Karst, the cave has been part of the World Heritage since 1995.

Description

The entrance of the cave is situated on the Upper Hill plateau, at a depression resembling a water sink 260° from the Vecsem-bükk peak at a distance of 1575 m, east of the centre of Bódvaszilas, in a specially protected area. It is close to the Névtelen sinkhole. If someone speaks loudly in one of the caves (the Nászút Cave or the Névtelen sinkhole), the sound can be heard in the adjacent cave. The geographical location of the Nászút Cave appears on some tourist maps. On these tourist maps the cave symbol and the name Nászút Cave mark the cave’s position. Next to the cave, on the north side, two prominent fissures can be observed, marked with the signs S/14 and S/15. Near it opens the Cilike sinkhole.

The cave formed in Middle Triassic Wetterstein limestone. Its peculiarity is that, unlike most caves located on Upper Hill, it is a cave rather than a sinkhole. The horizontal extent of the Nászút Cave is 14 m. The first section of the entrance part is vertical. After a depth of 10 m the passage breaks and turns back, then continues downwards for about 20 m at an angle of roughly 45° to the collapsed end. The unsealed and narrow cave can be visited with permission.

The cave also appears in literature under the names Unknown sinkhole (Kordos 1984), Nászlyuk Cave (Szenthe 1976), Nászut Cave (Fodor 1972, Csernavölgyi 1972), Nászut sinkhole (Horváth, Máté 1975) and Nászút sinkhole (Kordos 1984). It was also designated with the label S-16 (Kósa 1992).

Research History

The cave was discovered in 1972 by members of the Red Meteor Tectonics Cave Research Group. Attila Walkovszky and István Szenthe carried out rope work and temperature measurements in it in 1972. In 1975 Marek E., András Molnár, I. Oláh and I. Törő surveyed the cave, after which András Molnár, based on the survey, drew the cave’s plan map, longitudinal section map and nine cross‑section maps. The maps present the cave at a scale of 1:100. On October 19 1975 and during a later field trip, the FTSK Cave Research Department uncovered a new part in the Nászút Cave. According to the 1975 MKBT Report, the new part is about 300 m long, but because it lies on a level where a high fissure widens one above the other, the actual length is probably shorter.

In 1976 Lukács László also participated in the cave research. According to the group report written by Szenthe István and published in the 1976 volume of the MKBT Report, the cave was about 40 m long at the time of its discovery. In 1977 members of the Promontor SE Cave Research Group proved by shouting that the Nászút Cave is connected to the Névtelen sinkhole. Based on traverses they thought that one of the high-reaching vaults of the Nászút Cave comes very close to the sinkhole. Their 1977 report states that their work in 1977 was to find an entrance to the Nászút Cave by removing the rock debris in the side fissure of the Névtelen sinkhole, which would lay the foundation for further work.

According to the speleological field report made on 30 January 1977 and based on the cave’s November 1975 traverse, the cave’s plan length is 22 m, in reality 26 m long, with a horizontal extent of 15 m and a vertical extent of 16 m. It is located in Bódvaszilás at an altitude of 505 m above sea level, 10 m left of the road, in a pine forest, and the cave has a horizontal‑profile, broken and choked fissure passage. Essentially horizontal passages have been explored in the cave. Further excavation was planned after securing the debris at the end point, because measurements suggested a large cave system. The choked passage at the end point is life‑threatening, rotten. The manuscript also notes that the cave was discovered in August 1957 by Balázs Dénes.

In the nationwide cave list of the book *Magyarország barlangjai* published in 1984, the cave located on the Aggtelek Karst appears under the name Nászút Cave with the name variants Nászút-zsomboly and Ismeretlen-zsomboly. Related to the list, the geographical location of the cave is shown on a 1:500 000 scale map presenting the geographical positions of the caves of the Aggtelek Karst and the Bükk Mountains. In the figure published in 1992 in *Karszt és Barlangban*, showing the numerous caves, pits and sinkholes of the Hungarian part of the Alsó-hegy, the geographical location of the cave is visible. In the book *Alsó-hegyi zsombolyatlasz* published in 1992, the cave’s location is marked on one of the maps depicting the Hungarian side of the Alsó-hegy plateau. The publication includes maps of the cave made in 1975, and together with several data it lists a literary work in which the cave is mentioned. The cave has been part of the World Heritage since 1995.

According to the thesis prepared by Attila Nyerges in 1997, the 13 m deep Nászút Cave is the 40th deepest cave of the Hungarian part of the Alsó-hegy. It was one of the sites of the 1999 Lakatos Cup. In the publication of the XV Lakatos Cup held on September 27 2008, it is listed as a 13 m deep cave. The booklet contains the cave’s floor plan map, a vertical longitudinal section map and six cross‑section maps. The maps were made at an unknown date by an unknown creator. One non‑mandatory, surface contact point of the competition was the cave.