Karain Cave (Karain Magarasi) description and photos - Turkey: Antalya (Topic)

Karain Magarasi cave description and photos - Turkey: Antalya. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Karain Magarasi.

Photo and description

Karain Cave is one of the most interesting historical and archaeological sites and the largest natural cave in Turkey. It is located near the village of Yagdzha (Yenikoy district) in the Mediterranean region of the country, about 27 kilometers northwest of Antalya, on the eastern slope of the rocky Chan mountain. The cave is located at an altitude of about three hundred and seventy meters above sea level and eighty meters up the slope, where the Western Taurus zone is bordered by a plain of calcareous tuff. The height of the cave itself is one hundred and fifty meters.

In addition to its natural value, Karain is also a huge historical one. Due to its particularly successful location and its convenience, since the Paleolithic era - twenty-five thousand years ago, it was inhabited by people, which left a large number of material reminders of their stay.

The cave was first discovered in 1946. In the same year, the first scientific expedition to these underground labyrinths, headed by Ismail Kilich Kokten, descended. However, due to the crisis that erupted in the post-war years, excavations had to be suspended for an indefinite period of time. They were resumed under the leadership of Ishin Yalchinkaya only in 1985. All research work was carried out mainly in the "Karain-E" hall. Cave Carain began to be studied more thoroughly already in 1996, when the department of prehistoric times of the University of Liege (Belgium) began to supervise the excavations.

The cave was conditionally divided into seven rooms, named in the form of letters of the Latin alphabet from A to G. Hall E is of the greatest interest among tourists, where the bones of a Neanderthal man up to two hundred thousand years old were found. This hall is the largest treasury of ancient monuments in the world. The cultural layer here is about eleven meters, in which tools of the Acheulean, Mousterian and Aurignacian eras, made of stone, were discovered.

The cave has only one entrance, and it leads to three large halls and a small museum of Anatolian civilizations, which contains a collection of artifacts discovered during the excavations of Karayin - products made of stone and bones of hunter-gatherers who lived in the cave.

It is noteworthy that it was in this cave that the remains of an ancient man were found in the territory of modern Turkey, as well as fragments of ancient weapons, arrowheads, tools and bones of prehistoric animals, such as cave bear, wolf, lion and hippo. In the Mousterian layer, and in the intermediate layer between it and the Aurignacian, two teeth of an ancient man were discovered, one of which belongs to a Neanderthal.

Judging by the inscriptions with which the walls of the cave are lavishly decorated, we can conclude that it was used in ancient times, not only as housing, but also as a place of worship. Perhaps there was a place of worship and sacrifice here. It is also assumed that at various times the cave served as a burial place. Inside the cave, serious destruction and collapse occurred.

In the halls, illuminated with dim electric light, there are special observation platforms for tourists. There are many beautiful stalagmites and stalactites in the cave that have formed naturally over the millennia. The sites of the excavations have also been preserved here, so that interested tourists can see them. The cave maintains a constant temperature of about twenty degrees, it is quite humid here.

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Topic: Karain Cave (Karain Magarasi) description and photos - Turkey: Antalya.