Remete-völgyi Upper Cave

Remete Valley Upper Cave is one of the highly protected caves of Hungary. It is located in the Danube–Ipoly National Park, in the Remete Gorge in the Buda Hills. Scientifically valuable significant archaeological finds have been recovered from it.

Description

In the outskirts of Remeteszőlős, in the Remete Gorge, the entrance to the Remete Valley Upper Cave is located slightly east‑northeast of the Remete Cave and about 20 m higher, about 70 m above the stream level. From the Remete Cave a rocky and narrow path heading east‑northeast leads to the entrance of the Remete Valley Upper Cave, which looks toward the north‑south direction, is about 2.2 m wide and 1.7 m high. It is situated on the middle cave level of the Remete Gorge (this level lies 70 m above the valley floor, at an altitude of 340–350 m above sea level). It is on the same level that also contains the Remete‑hegyi stone niche.

It formed in Upper Triassic Dachstein limestone. Its vertical extent is 5 m and its greatest horizontal extent is 23 m. Its length was 29.3 m, its floor area 77 m² and its volume 129 m³ in 1970. It consists of a single easily walkable straight corridor that widens into a small chamber at the end. The ceiling of the cave is close to the surface. The unsealed cave can be visited without permission with basic caving equipment, but homeless people sometimes live in it.

Fossil remains, several teeth of a Neanderthal, Paleolithic tools belonging to the Jankovichi culture and Bronze Age pottery shards were recovered from it. The latter were assigned to the Bodrogkeresztúr culture by Vera Gáboriné Csánk. A treasure consisting of 62 objects from the Bronze Age, belonging to the Koszider culture, was uncovered during the excavation. Among the finds were a bronze belt ornament, a diadem, a bracelet, bronze axes, gold hair rings and amber beads. The prehistoric people may have used it only as a temporary shelter, a hunting hideout.

In addition to the archaeological finds, remains of Pleistocene animals were recovered from it. The fill contained a giant deer antler, mammoth, cave hyena, woolly rhinoceros, Alpine ibex, reindeer, blind mole rat, snow vole, ermine, cave lion, peat moss and cave bear bone.

In 1989 the cave was first called Remete-völgyi Upper Cave in the literature. The cave appears in the literature as cave number 6 (Horváth, Szunyogh 1971), Upper Cave (Horváth, Szunyogh 1971), Uppercave (Csánk 1970), Upper cave (Csánk 1971), Remete-Upper-cave (Bertalan, Kordos, Országh 1976), Remete-upper-cave (Ringer 1989), Remete-hegyi 6th cave (Kordos 1984), Remetehegyi 6th cave (Bertalan 1976), Remetei-Upper-cave (Pápa, Dénes 1982), Remete-völgyi-cave (Gonda 1982), Remete-völgyi-uppercave (Kordos 1980), Remetevölgyi-Upper-cave (Szablyár 2004) and Remete-völgyi-uppercave (Horváth, Szunyogh 1971).

1877–1984

The 1877 Archaeological Bulletin mentions that the antiquities department of the Hungarian National Museum was enriched in November by one (animal) lower jawbone, two bones and three pottery shards. These finds, which were recovered from the rock fissure located near Remetemária in Buda, were donated to the museum by Lajos Lóczy. The 1904 Budapest Antiquities notes that the rock fissures of Remetemária were probably Stone Age pasture sites, from which Lajos Lóczy (Archaeological N., 168/1877.) brought coarse pottery pieces to the Hungarian National Museum.

It first saw daylight in 1937, and in a publication written by István Jablonkay it is mentioned that on the left wall of the Remete gorge, at a height of 50 m (upper level) and 10 m (lower level) above the stream, there are spring caves. The spring cave located on the upper level is less developed and uglier than the other spring cave situated on the upper level, which can be observed along the entire length of the gorge. If a cave’s erosion base moves downwards, the cave’s water system follows. This can happen, for example, when water leaves the old transitional cave and the old spring cave, and then, descending through thin cracks in the rock, creates a new cave system. In this case a new spring cave opens beneath the old one, at the new level of the subsided erosion base. The old upper entrance is then blocked by the remaining karst breccia. The abandoned spring caves lining the left wall of the Remete gorge are fine examples of this process. The erosion base of these caves was the stream of the cave whose collapse formed the gorge. The caves on the upper level indicate the former height of the gorge‑cave stream before the segmental change.

In the chapter written by Ferenc Tompa in the 1942 book *Budapest története* it is mentioned that after Flóris Rómer, Géza Nagy also noted that coarse pots had been found in the rock hollows of Remetemária, which probably originate from the polished stone age. In 1948 Miklós Gábori visited the Upper Cave of the Remete Valley. Sándor Leél‑Őssy gave a lecture at the Hungarian Hydrological Society meeting of 9 March 1949. The topic of the lecture was the Seven‑hole. The lecture also mentioned the other caves of the Remete gorge. Sándor Leél‑Őssy gave a lecture at the society’s specialist meeting of 9 November 1949, in which he presented the caves of the Remete gorge.

The text of the lecture given by Sándor Leél-Őssy on 9 March 1949 was published in issues 3–4 of the 1950 volume of the Hydrological Gazette. The publication is titled The Seven‑Hole‑Cave of Remete Mountain. The study mentions that the currently high‑located but already dry, dying spring caves of Remete Mountain were formed in the Pliocene and early Pleistocene. (Cave under the seven holes, Remete‑mountain stone‑cell and several other smaller unfinished or broken caves, as well as a spring chamber.) Afterwards, due to the young tectonic uplift and the climatic origin of the erosion base, the karst water level of Remete Mountain also fell and the caves that had become dry began to die out.