Peterloch

Peterloch
Dripstones in the cave
Location:	Woppenthal , Birgland , Franconian Alb , Germany
Height :	590  m above sea level NHN
Geographic location:	49 ° 25 '53 "  N , 11 ° 38' 36.2"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 25 '53 "  N , 11 ° 38' 36.2"  E
Cadastral number:	E 7
Type:	Sinkhole , hall cave , stalactite cave
Show cave since:	No
Lighting:	No
Overall length:	32 meters
Particularities:	Already during prehistory

The Peterloch is a naturally formed karst cave near Woppenthal in the Upper Palatinate municipality of Birgland in the district of Amberg-Sulzbach , Bavaria . The cave is registered as E 7 in the Franconian Alb cave register (HFA). Numerous prehistoric finds have been made in the cave, which is why it is protected as a ground monument.

Geographical location

The cave is located about 580 meters south-south-west of the center of Woppenthal on the gently sloping western slope of the Brackenberg, a west-south-western branch of the 611  m above sea level. NN high Bear Mountain. It is only a few meters below the summit of the mountain at around 590  m above sea level. NN in the eponymous forest department of the Peterleite. It can be reached from Woppenthal via the forest road leading to the south-west; it is located east of the road immediately before exiting the forest.

description

The entrance to the approximately 32 by 15 meter stalactite cave is located in a steep-walled funnel-shaped sinkhole that slopes down several meters . At the bottom of this, in addition to an opening that is only a few decimeters wide, the entry hole, which is about one meter in diameter, opens up to a one meter wide, today two meters deep and five meters long gap due to fall material, which ends shortly afterwards in the north. At the south end it goes into a lower-lying, larger hall. The descent into this cave hall leads over a steeply sloping rubble cone. This front hall is only a few meters high due to the rubble cone and has only a few sintered decorations without stalactites. This hall goes directly into a second, somewhat smaller one, which is covered with small stalactites along the entire cave ceiling, there are also some larger stalactites on the cave floor.

The ground monument recorded by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as "Peterloch Cave (E7) with finds from the Urnfield Period and the Late Hallstatt / Early La Tène Period as well as human skeletal remains" bears monument number D-3-6535-0007.

Research history

The Amberg dentist Ehrensberger undertook the first excavations in the cave when he removed eight human skulls around 1890 . Further excavations and prospecting were carried out from 1916 by Ferdinand Birkner , Anton Dollacker and Fritz Knarr, and in 1936 by the Nuremberg speleologist Richard Erl . In addition to human skulls, other skeletal remains as well as prehistoric and medieval fragments were found. The finds are in the collection of the Natural History Society in Nuremberg and in the Historical Museum in Regensburg .

Access

The Peterloch is freely accessible all year round, but it is not entirely safe to enter.

photos

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  View into the collapse doline with the cave entrance at the bottom. In the background the forest road leading by. (May 2015)

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  View from the debris cone to the entrance gap (May 2015)

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  Debris cone and front hall (May 2015)

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  Raised ceiling of the rear hall (May 2015)

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  Dripstones in the rear hall (May 2015)

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  Broken stalactite on which new ones grow (May 2015)

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  Another broken stalactite (May 2015)

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  Raised ceiling of the rear hall (May 2015)

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  Small stalactites on the high floor of the rear hall (May 2015)

literature

• Armin Stroh : The prehistoric and early historical monuments of the Upper Palatinate . (Material booklets on Bavarian prehistory, series B, volume 3). Verlag Michael Lassleben, Kallmünz 1975, ISBN 3-7847-5030-3 , pp. 96-97.

Web links

Commons : Peterloch (E 7)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Location of the cave in the Bavarian Monument Atlas
2. ↑ List of monuments for Birgland (PDF) at the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (PDF; 135 kB)
3. ↑ Armin Stroh: The prehistoric and early historical site monuments of the Upper Palatinate , p. 96