Szentendrei Cave

The Szentendrei Cave is one of those artificially originated cavities located in the Visegrád Mountains of the Danube–Ipoly National Park, in the area of Szentendre. Not a cave.

Description

It is situated on the north side of the ridge that runs southwest from the Table Stone rising on the north bank of the Sztelin stream, north of the inner area of Szentendre. Not far from the cavity called Cat Hole. Szentendrei Cave’s size was described by Iván Skerletz as 3×5 meters, which roughly matches the data of the 1997 survey. Originally it was of a rock‑erosion type, like the nearby Cat Hole, but the open part has been filled with huge rock blocks, making it more cave‑like and more sealed off from the outside world.

The cavity is artificially originated, probably formed during stone mining carried out here in the Middle Ages. Its interior is barren, providing a suitable hideout for small predators, which is reinforced by the bones found in it. The enclosing rock is the volcanic rock of the area, that is andesite tuff and andesite breccia.

The cavity also occurs in literature under the name Nyergeshegyi cavity (Bertalan 1976).

Research history

The cavity was first mentioned in print by Iván Skerletz. Károly Bertalan registered the Cat Hole and the Szentendrei Cave under the name Nyergeshegyi cavities.

In the book *Archaeological Topography of Hungary*, which saw the light of day in 1986, it is written that the stone‑mine traces on the east side of the ridge running from É to DNy, from Szentendre to É, were pointed out by István Erdélyi, and then examined by Iván Skerletz. Among the K–Ny‑oriented, 10–15 m high andesite tuff–andesite breccia rock walls, the lowest smooth‑carved rock wall contains a quadratically cut carving and an artificial cave about 3×5 m in size. Not far from the artificial cave, to the K, is located the Cat Hole.

On December 21, 1997, Szenti Tamás contacted Ferenczi Balázs and Sarvajcz Zoltán, discovered an object unknown to researchers dealing with caves in non-karstic rock known from literature, and mapped it, as well as produced photographic documentation.

The manuscript bibliography of Hungary's non-karst caves, titled *Bibliography of Hungary's Non-Karst Caves*, prepared on November 12, 2001, includes the Szentendrei Cave in its cave name index. The cave name index lists 5 literary works that deal with the cavity. Item 366 does not mention it, item 365 mentions it. In the study published in the 2014 *Karst Development*, it is readable that in the Table Stone there are two chambers carved into a mine wall, the Szentendrei Cave and the Cat Hole. One of the 7 cave-like but artificial cavities of the Visegrád Mountains is the cavity located in Szentendre with a floor area of 3.1 × 5.7 m and a height of 7 m.