Dechenhöhle
| Dechen Cave Iserlohn
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 Kaiserhalle in the Dechenhöhle |
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| Location: | Iserlohn , Sauerland , Germany | |
| Height : | 170 m above sea level NN | |
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Geographic location: |
51 ° 21 '56 " N , 7 ° 38' 41" E | |
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| Geology: | Rhenish Slate Mountains | |
| Discovery: | 1868 | |
| Show cave since: | 1868 | |
| Lighting: | electric | |
| Overall length: | 902 meters | |
| Length of the show cave area: |
400 meters | |
| Website: | www.dechenhoehle.de | |
The Dechenhöhle Iserlohn is a show cave in the northern Sauerland in Iserlohn ( Green district ) in North Rhine-Westphalia.
history
On June 10, 1868, the cave was discovered by two railway workers. A hammer is said to have fallen into a gap in the rock, which turned out to be access to a stalactite cave when looking for this tool or when blasting off a piece of rock . 400 by 902 meters of the cave have been expanded for visitors.
The cave is named after the chief miner Heinrich von Dechen (1800-1889), in recognition of his contributions to the investigation of the geology of the Rhineland and Westphalia . Von Dechen visited the cave, as did Johann Carl Fuhlrott , the discoverer of the Neanderthal man , who looked for bones in the cave and made an initial plan of the cave. There is an in large coils by the limestone withdrawing Karsthöhle whose usually barrel-shaped large gear profile with a variety of sintering molds ( stalactites , stalagmites , wall Inter cascades gours etc.) is lined. This abundance of crystalline deposits makes it particularly worth seeing, so that it was expanded for visitors immediately after its discovery. Due to its relatively high location above the Green Valley , water has not flowed through it for thousands of years; instead, thick clay deposits form the cave floor under the sinter . The inhabitants of the cave include the great cave spider ( Meta menardi ) and bats.
The German Cave Museum , which was newly opened in 2006, is located next to the cave . In addition to documentation on worldwide caving, important finds from the Dechen Cave are presented, such as the skeleton of a cave bear cub excavated here in 2000 and the skull of a forest rhinoceros discovered in 1993 . These finds were recovered from the thick clay deposits of the cave floor. An archaeological excavation site, which explains the find situation to the visitors of the cave, can be visited during a cave tour.
The cave is located in a Devonian mass limestone basin that extends from Hagen to Balve . There are other smaller show caves in Hemer ( Heinrichshöhle ) and in the Hönnetal ( Reckenhöhle ). The Dechen Cave is one of the many caves in the Green Valley, which together have a passage length of over 17 kilometers. The longest single cave , the B7 cave , is approx. 5,100 meters long. It is named after Bundesstraße 7 , during the expansion of which the front parts of the cave were discovered.
Concerts and music tours are also held in the cave. A tour of the cave takes about 40 minutes. It is not allowed to take photos or film during the regular tours.
Transport links
As the only show cave in Germany, the Dechenhöhle has its own railway stop . All regional express trains from Iserlohn to Essen via Hagen and Bochum ( line RE 16 ) and the regional trains from Iserlohn to Hagen (line RB 91) stop in the immediate vicinity of the visitor entrance on the Letmathe – Fröndenberg line.
Property situation
Due to the discovery during railway construction work, the Dechenhöhle was until 1983 owned by the initially private, then state railway companies, most recently the Deutsche Bundesbahn . Cave guides were always no longer fit for duty railway workers. At the end of 1983, Mark Sauerland Touristik GmbH took over the cave. It is owned by the Märkisches Kreis and the city of Iserlohn through the Märkische Kommunale-Wirtschafts-GmbH.
literature
- Carl Vogt : A day in the caves of Westphalia . In: The Gazebo . Issue 9-10, 1869 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- A. Steinbach: The Dechenhöhle near Iserlohn in Westphalia. In: Old and New World. Illustrated Catholic monthly for entertainment and instruction , 4 (1870), pp. 217–219 (with 1 illustration)
- Carl Fuhlrott: The caves and grottoes in Rhineland-Westphalia, together with a description and plan of the newly discovered magnificent Dechen Cave , Iserlohn, Bädeker, 1869 ( online )
- Carl Fuhlrott: Guide to the Dechenhöhle . 1869 ( urn : nbn: de: hbz: 6: 1-75796 ). 2nd Edition. 1873 ( urn : nbn: de: hbz: 6: 1-75712 )
- Hans Binder, Anke Luz, Hans Martin Luz: Show caves in Germany. Aegis Verlag, Ulm 1993, ISBN 3-87005-040-3 , pp. 34-36.
See also
Web links
- Website Dechenhöhle
- Pictures of the Dechenhöhle
- Images of the Dechenhöhle in the image archive of the LWL media center for Westphalia
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fuhlrott's plan
- ↑ Longest and deepest caves in Germany. ARGE Höhle & Karst Grabenstetten eV, March 2018, accessed on March 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Note on the ownership situation on the MVG website , accessed on May 3, 2015