Long hole (Flatzer stalactite cave)
| Long hole (Flatzer stalactite cave)
|
||
|---|---|---|
 The entrance of the long hole, next to it a plaque |
||
| Location: | Flatzer Wall , Gutenstein Alps , near Flatz , Lower Austria | |
| Height : | 585 m above sea level A. | |
|
Geographic location: |
47 ° 44 '56 " N , 16 ° 1' 15" E | |
|
||
| Cadastral number: | 1861/9 | |
| Geology: | Gutenstein lime | |
| Type: | Stalactite cave (desolate) | |
| Show cave since: | 1904-1906 | |
| Overall length: | 90 m | |
| Level difference: | 14 m (+3 m, −11 m) | |
| Length of the show cave area: |
full length | |
| Particularities: | Fossils and artifacts; former show cave , closed in winter (bat protection) | |
The Lange Loch , also Flatzer stalactite cave ( cadastral number 1861/9), is the best known and largest of the caves in the Flatzer Wand in the Gutenstein Alps near Flatz in Lower Austria .
Approach and description
The long hole is located in the eastern part of the Flatzer Wand and can be reached via a now fairly overgrown little steep path that branches off from the Wandsteig (sign to the Flatzer stalactite cave ). The last few meters are secured with an aluminum ladder.
It is approx. 90 m long and up to 3 m high. It splits into 2 parallel, mostly spacious, cleft passages ( main passage and Rathstollen ), which merge again at the end in the museum hall . From the artificially modified main entrance (1 m wide, 2 m high) a narrow, high corridor leads steeply downwards (the Wandererklamm ) into the dividing hall , into which the second, smaller access, the Dachslucke ( Dachslucke ) with an extremely narrow, vertical crevice ( 1861/2), opens. Today, this connecting gap is barred on the side of the Dachslucke, only about 2 m can be entered.
Going straight ahead you will soon come to a junction. On the right one comes across the chimney-like Rohrauerdom , a larger room extension, into the museum hall, where the right one joins the narrower left passage (Rathstollen - with steps artificially carved into the rock). The museum hall (8 m long, up to 4 m wide and 6 m high) is the deepest point of the cave, 11 m lower than the entrance.
The formerly beautiful stalactite decorations in the cave are badly damaged. In winter, to protect the bats, it is locked with a lattice door that is otherwise open.
The Dachslucke (1861/2), 6 m west of the Long Hole, was originally considered a separate cave (length 20 m). In 1958 for the first time and then again in 1971, the connection with the Long Hole was established and navigated.
History and Finds
The Flatzer stalactite cave was uncovered between 1904 and 1906 and opened up as a show cave . In 1906 and 1907 well over 1000 visitors came to the show cave.
Tools, pottery shards and bones up to 3000 years old have been found. The k. k. Central Commission for Research and Conservation of Art and Historical Monuments reported in 1904:
"Ref. Szombathy announced that he had visited the site of the discovery in the stalactite cave north of Flatz on the basis of a complaint made by the teacher Heinrich Moses about excavations by the Neunkirchen local group of the 'Naturfreunde' tourist association. The cave is the most easterly of several such caves at the foot of the Flatzer Wand, an in and of itself insignificant rock eruption on the southern slope of the mountain "Auf der Kehr". The foremost part of the cave presents itself as a 1 - 2 m wide, eroded fissure, which strikes north and sinks from the entrance with a slope of about 20 into the mountain. It has now been cleared up to a length of about 40 m by removing considerable amounts of earth. Several diluvial and some recent animal bones, some human bones and numerous pot fragments were found in the cleared cave earth. The following mammal species are represented by the diluvial bones: Bear (not the large species Ursus spelaeus with a steeply stepped forehead, but a much smaller one with an evenly flat arched sagittal line, cf. U. arctoides ); Badger ; Marten ; Bunny . Much more recent debris is found: three damaged human bones, the skull of a small dog ( Pintscher ) and the skull of a hornless sheep . The pot shards include three prehistoric clay vessels, without any special features; all the rest come from common, partly glazed and partly unglazed pot dishes from the last centuries. The Association of Friends of Nature has leased the cave for 15 years and has kept it with an iron door and wants to clear it out little by little. The finds should remain in Neunkirchen. "
Parts of a cave lion were also found later . In the course of the excavations, all artefacts were removed from the cave, but an inventory of the layers of the find was not taken, so a chronological assignment is no longer possible today. In the museum hall there was a small exhibition of found objects, the facilities were looted after the end of the First World War. Some finds were saved in the Neunkirchen local history museum. Today the facilities are in ruins.
literature
- J. Caspart: Caves in the Flatzer wall . 1912.
- Max H. Fink, Helga and Wilhelm Hartmann (Red.): The caves of Lower Austria . Ed .: Verband Österreichischer Höhlenforscher [VÖH] (= Die Höhle - Journal for Karst and Speleology . Volume 1 , booklet no. 28 ). Vienna 1979, p. 3 ( hoehle.org ( memento from June 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF; 44 kB ] Erg. H. and W. Hartmann, No. 37, Volume 4, 1990).
Individual evidence
-
↑ Franz Lindenmayr: Entrance to the Flatzer stalactite cave alias Langes Loch. In: Man and Cave. September 23, 2007, accessed October 14, 2010 . Landscape and caves in the Flatzer Wand, Lower Austria Friedrich Volkmann: Photos of the caves. In: Flatzer Wand. Retrieved October 14, 2010 .
- ^ Local group Neunkirchen der Naturfreunde: Wie Alles Begann… (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 28, 2010 ; Retrieved October 16, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Meetings of December 2, 1904 . In: Communications of the kk central commission for research and preservation of art and historical monuments . 3rd episode, volume 3 . Commission W. Braunmüller, Vienna 1904, p. 430 f . ( archive.org - list of the individual finds reproduced here in a streamlined manner without annotation).
- ↑ Upper jaw and fragment of front jaw, today Lower Austria. State Museum, Vienna. Ernst Probst: Cave lions: big cats in the Ice Age (= academic series ). GRIN Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-640-27263-1 , lion finds in Austria - Lower Austria , p. 191 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ↑ Wolfgang Haider-Berky: The parish church of St. Lorenzen am Steinfeld . Ed .: Parish St. Lorenzen. 1st edition. August 2008, p. 7-8 .
