Sólyom-kút Rock Shelter

The Sólyom-kút rock shelter, located in the Bükki National Park, is one of the caves from which archaeological finds have been recovered. It is among the specially protected caves of Hungary. It also appears in tourist guidebooks.

Description

It opens on the part of the Bükk plateau called the Little Plateau. It is not far from the spring named Sólyom-kút. Below the summit of Sólyom-kő, on the edge of Sólyom-kő that faces the Garadna valley, is the main entrance, seven meters wide and four meters high. From the entrance chamber a water‑tongue‑like passage and a broken ceiling also open to the surface. In total it connects with the outside world through three openings. It formed in Triassic limestone. It is freely visitable and no equipment is needed for viewing. Benches are located in front of the main entrance.

It was one of the four residential caves of our country. In 2003 its function was terminated because it had been developed without permission. A wooden priccs was placed inside as a sleeping place. The other three residential caves that still provide accommodation are the Cserepes‑kői rock shelter, the Három‑kúti Remete cave and the Odvas‑kői rock shelter, also located in the Bükk region. A fire‑making site was created in front of the main entrance.

According to an old saying of the local inhabitants, it was the hideout of Márton Vidróczki and “on the cave top at some time the outlaw’s name was carved with shining letters”. The name of Márton Vidróczki is preserved in one of the cave’s name variants. The Vidróczki cave is the other cave that could have been a hideout of the outlaw. The archaeological site identifier number is 16774.

The cave occurs in its literature as Sólyom-kuti-sziklaüreg (Bertalan, Schőnviszky 1973–1974), Sólyomkuti-sziklaüreg (Bertalan 1976), Sólyomkuti sziklaüreg (Barbie 1942), Sólyomkúti-barlang (Várszegi 1974), Sólyomkúti barlang (Kadić 1907), Sólyomkúti-sziklaüreg (Kadić 1930), Sólyomkúti sziklaüreg (Schőnviszky 1937), Vidrócki-barlang (Ringer, Regős 2008), Vidróczki-barlang (Ringer 2002), Vidróczky-barlang (Schőnviszky 1937) and Vidróczky barlang (Kadić 1930). In 1977 the cave was first called Sólyom-kúti-sziklaüreg in the literature.

Research History

In the 1907 volume of the Geological Gazette, a study written by Ottó Kadić mentions that Ottó Kadić explored the limestone area belonging to the system of the Szinva valley and visited the Sólyomkúti cave on the left bank of the Garadna. Ottó Kadić conducted excavations in the cavity in 1942. He examined the western half of its fill down to the chert.

In addition to cave bear bones, two carefully worked stone tools belonging to the Moustier culture were recovered from the cave: a finely crafted handaxe and a well-made blade scraper, whose further fate is unknown. They are not present in any collection. In the Holocene humus layer, Upper Paleolithic pottery sherd fragments were found. Ottó Kadić conducted further research in 1943 in the still unexamined northern part of the rock shelter. Three newspapers published reports about the research, and a manuscript written by Ottó Kadić in 1952 also mentions it.

A nicely worked mountain and two Paleolithic stone tools, as well as cave bear bones, emerged from the fill. From this part a Neolithic small cup and many pottery sherds were collected. The Neolithic finds are memories of the Bük culture, which are kept in the Herman Ottó Museum. Of the four tools belonging to the Moustier culture uncovered during the two excavations, the material of two of them could come only from a gray‑brown, white‑spotted, very characteristic, altered volcanic rock found in the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland, near Święciechów.

Two of the four finds were certainly found during the 1942 excavation, and two were probably found during the 1943 excavation by Kadić Ottó (Mester 2001). It also cannot be determined which two of the tools are the ones certainly uncovered in 1942 and which two are the ones that may have been uncovered in 1943 (Mester 2001).

Saád Andor and Nemeskéri János carried out excavations in the rock shelter in 1947 (Korek, Patay 1958). Referring to Saád Andor’s oral statement, Vértes László wrote in connection with this excavation that mammoth remains were uncovered (Vértes 1965). Vértes László visited the rock shelter with Saád Andor in 1951. Gábori Miklós 1951

conducted a trial excavation in the lowest red layer of the cave (Korek, Patay 1958, Vértes 1959). This, however, turned out to be a mistake, because Gábori Miklós said in the early 1990s that he never excavated the rock shelter.

László Vértes took samples from the cavity fill in 1955. In the manuscript titled *Hungary's Cave Inventory*, completed in 1976, it is stated that the Sólyomkuti rock shelter in the Bükk Mountains, located at Ómassa in Miskolc, has another name: Vidróczky-cave. It is under the Magos stone rock formation, at an altitude of 560 m a.s.l., with an arched entrance among the rocks. In the 15 m long, crumbling rock shelter there are two chambers. It has tourist and recreational use. Prehistoric tools and Pleistocene bone remains have been recovered from it. The part of the manuscript concerning the cave was written based on two literary works.

In the *Hungarian Speleology Bibliography* compiled by Károly Bertalan and László Schőnviszky, published in 1976, the cave name index lists the cave in the Bükk Mountains, the Ómassa cave, under the name Sólyom‑kuti rock shelter with the variant Vidróczky-cave. The cave name index lists eight literary works that deal with the cave. In the book *Caves in the Bükk*, which appeared in 1979, it is mentioned that the Vidróczky-cave is located on the D side of the spring named Sólyom‑kút, on the valley slope. From its entrance chamber two chambers lead to the surface, from which the splendid panorama of the Garadna valley opens before us. In its vicinity (below) there are several smaller and larger caves. On the map attached to the book, which shows the area of the Bükk Mountains richest in caves, the geographical location of the cave marked with number 13 can be seen.