Pappenheim Cave

The Pappenheim Cave is a cave formed in sandstone and conglomerate, located in the Cserhát, at Buják. Paleontological finds have been recovered from it.

Description

It is situated in the Buják ENy part, at the foot of Őr Hill, near the Bujáki stream, in a residential area (no longer cultivated) sandstone quarry, at an altitude of 188 m above sea level. The cave is natural, oval-shaped, 8 m wide, 3.7 m high, with an entrance facing DNy and oriented along a horizontal axis. The stone quarry is located at the intersection of Bokori Road and Béke Street. The cave was formed in middle Miocene sandstone and conglomerate by fissuring, collapse, crumbling and erosion (due to the stratification). The host rock is not identifiable, but the morphological features in the cave indicate that this sandstone cave also originated by the collapse of a lower cavity. It is a simple, single-level cave with an approximately elliptical cross‑section, whose characteristic section type is an ellipse.

Stratigraphic surfaces and ancient remains can be observed in it. The ancient remains are represented by ancient plants, which occur in a fragmentary sandstone layer. In several places the ceiling is formed by the planes of bedding layers. The rock contains a large amount of clearly visible plant remains. Andesite also occurs in the cave. At the end of the cave there is a huge stone bench. The loose and porous rock is still crumbling and eroding, resulting in a thick layer of sand and dust covering the floor. Near the entrance, as well as in several parts of the quarry wall, a portion of the looser sandstone is densely perforated with small, tube‑like cavities. The cavities were probably made by organisms of a membranous‑winged species. No permission is required to enter the cave. It can be easily visited in street clothing.

Nine layers have been distinguished in the right-hand wall. The paleofaunistic finds that emerged from the cave are significant mainly because they came from a sandy environment and not from a limestone cave.

It was named after the former owner of the quarry, Pappenheim Szikfrid, also known from other sources as Pappenheim Siegfried. In 1989 the cave was first called Pappenheim Cave in the literature. The cave also appears in the literature under the names Bujáki fissure cave (Kordos 1984) and Bujáki fissure-cave (Bertalan 1976).

Research History

In 1932 Tibor Matolay collected all the paleofaunistic material from one of the partial fillings and sent it to the Hungarian Natural History Museum. The 1959 Yearbook of the Natural History Museum states that vertebrate remains from the Upper Pleistocene–Early Holocene were identified from the cave’s old partial filling. Twenty species were identified from the 747 bones and bone fragments. Among the remains are also those of a snowy owl, a hawk eagle, a fire-bellied toad, a forest mouse and a Siberian lemming.

The manuscript titled *Hungary’s Cave Register*, completed in 1976, states that the Bujáki fissure-cave is located in Cserhát, at Buják. Its entrance is in the Pappenheim stone quarry next to Buják, and the cave is a fissure formed along horizontal separation planes. The part of the manuscript concerning the cave was written based on one study.

According to the study published in 1983, only the Upper Pleistocene fauna of the Buják fissure fill and the Függő-kői Cave were known in the Börzsöny, Cserhát and Mátra areas. The fauna of the Buják fissure fill is poor. In the national cave list of the book *Caves of Hungary*, which appeared in 1984, the cave is listed among the Börzsöny–Cserhát–Karancs caves under the name Bujáki-hasadékbarlang. Associated with the list, the cave’s geographical location is shown on the map overview of the geographical locations of the caves of Hungary. The Alba Regia Cave Research Group described it briefly in the 1988 yearbook. According to the description, for example, the Buják council chairman and the retired forester had not heard of it.

On 21 October 1989, István Eszterhás and Imre Gönczöl located, surveyed and measured the cave. Based on the survey, István Eszterhás prepared a plan view cave map, a longitudinal section cave map and a cross‑section cave map. The cave map sheet includes two site sketches, which show the cave’s location and, according to the cave map sheet, a length of 11.5 metres and a height of 4.7 metres. The cave map sheet, a site drawing, four photographs and a detailed description of the cave were included in the 1989 yearbook of the Alba Regia Cave Research Group.

In his 1989 manuscript titled List of Hungary's non-karst caves, István Eszterhás states that the Pappenheim Cave located in Buják in the Cserhát Mountains, in the cave inventory area 5223, has another name: Bujáki-hasadékbarlang. The cave formed in limestone is 11.5 m long and 2.8 m high. It is one of the nine caves in the Cserhát Mountains that formed in non-karst rock. 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. In Hungary, 21 caves have formed in limestone. According to the cave list published by László Kordos in 1984, 119 such caves that originated in non-karst rock are also listed.