Cueva de Ardales

Cueva de Doña Trinidad - Cueva de la Calinoria

Useful Information

Location:	Museo de la Historia y Tradiciones de Ardales, Avenida de Málaga nº 1, 29550 Ardales. Near the small town Ardales, Guadalteba (Málaga). (36.87276, -4.828887)
Open:	All year Tue-Thu 10, Fr, Sat 10, 16, Sun 10. Online reservation mandatory. Ardales Prehistory Center: All year Tue-Sun 9:30-14:30. [2024]
Fee:	Adults EUR 15, Children (8-12) EUR 5. [2024]
Classification:	Karst cave Painted Cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	L=1,597 m, A=565 m asl, T=16 °C, H=80-100%.
Guided tours:	L=400 m, D=90 min, Max=15/day, MinAge=8.
Photography:	not allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:	Henri Breuil (1921): Nouvelles cavernes ornées paléolithiques dans la province de Málaga In: L’Anthropologie. Band 31, Nr. 3–4, 1921, S. 239–253. José Ramos Muñoz, Gerd-Christian Weniger (2014): Cueva de Ardales, Province of Málaga, In: Robert Sala (Ed.): Pleistocene and Holocene hunter-gatherers in Siberia and the Gibraltar Strait. The Current Archaeological Record: 426-429. Universidad de Burgos y Fundación Atapuerca. academia.edu Dirk L. Hoffmann et al. (2018): U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art In: Science. Vol 359, Nr. 6378, 2018, pp. 912–915. DOI
Address:	Museo de la Historia y Tradiciones de Ardales, Avenida de Málaga nº 1, 29550 Ardales, Tel: +34-952-458-046. E-mail: gloria@ardales.es Reservation: E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1821	cave discovered after an earthquake which opened an entrance.
1823	opened to the public as a show cave.
1850	mentioned in the Diccionario de Madoz.
1854	purchased by Doña Trinidad Grund.
1859	cave developed with new trails and staircases.
1860	reopened as a show cave renamed Cueva de Doña Trinidad.
1866	official guide appointed and supports for oil lamps installed.
1896	cave closed after the death of Doña Trinidad.
1918	visited twice by the famous Abbé Henri Breuil accompanied by the Malaga archaeologist Miguel Such.
1931	declared a National Monument.
1981	galerías colgadas (high galleries) discovered, which had their own entrance during prehistory.
1985	renovated and reopened to the public by the Ardales City Council.
2010	included in the European Cultural Itinerary by the Council of Europe.
2019	on the UNESCO WHL tentative list with “Caminito del Rey and its surroundings”.

Description

The Cueva de Ardales near the town Ardales is a karst cave with cave paintings. The entrance to the cave was the result of a collapse caused by the Alhama de Granada earthquake in 1821. It was obviously accessible during prehistoric times, but the entrance was sealed by sediments for some 3,500 years or 8,000 years. It was called Cueva de Ardales after the nearby village or Cueva de la Calinoria after the Cerro de la Calinoria (Calinoria Hill), where it is located. The cave was immediately developed as a show cave and opened to the public in 1823, for an entrance fee of two reales. The development was minimal though. It was purchased by Trinidad Grund in 1854 (or probably 1952). Doña Trinidad was the daughter of the Russian consul, and operated a bath with thermal springs in the municipality of Carratraca. She improved the development with better trails and staircases in 1959 and renamed it Cueva de Doña Trinidad for the reopneing in 1860. She offered one of the first "tourist packages" in the country, which included accommodation in Carratraca, thermal baths, flamenco show, and a visit to the cave. She also appointed an official guide and installed supports for oil lamps in 1866. After the death of Doña Trinidad the cave was closed. It was visited by Abbé Breuil, the famous French archaeologist in 1918. After two visits to the cave, he published his discoveries of paintings and engravings in various papers. In 1931 the cave was finally declared a National Monument.

The next phase of the cave started with its rediscovery in 1985. The cave was studied again by archaeologists, the trails renovated, and the cave reopened to the public. Only two years later, in 1987, the Parque de Ardales was created to protect the cave. A museum, the Museo de la Historia y Tradiciones de Ardales (Prehistory Interpretation Center in Ardales), was founded which displays the discoveries from the cave and other excavations. The museum operates the cave until today. The number of visitors is restricted to 1,000 per year and 15 per day. As a result, the waiting list is around three months. Visitors meet the guides at the museum, where the tour starts with a guided visit of the exhibition. Then visitors drive with their own vehicle 4 km to the cave. The visit inside the cave is 1.5 h to 2 h long, the whole tour takes about 3 h.

The cave contains over 50 paintings from the Upper Paleolithic (Solutrean and Magdalenian, 18,000-14,000 BC) which are mostly located at the Galería del Calvario. They show animals, like hinds, horses, goats and a fish. In the Sala del Saco and the Sala de Las Estrellas Mesolithic (~8,000 BC) and Middle and Upper Neolithic (~4,000 BC) remains were discovered. The Galerías Altas (Upper Gallery) contains Upper Paleolithic (~20,000 BC) engravings, paintings and other remains. Quite strange is a painting which is dated to about 35,000 BP and was painted by a child with iron oxide. Negatives of hands where the hands were "airbrushed", pressed on the rock while red colour was blown on them with the mouth, were dated to 45,000 BP. The older paintings were obviously made by Neanderthals. Three signs in the Hall of Stars were dated in 2018 by Uranium/Thorium dating between 45,000 BP and 65,000 BP. Human occupations were found at 65,000 BP, 51,000 BP, 43,000 BP, 36,000 BP, 24,000 BP, 19,500 BP, 14,000 BP, 11,500 BP, and 8,000 BP.

The cave has a length of 1,500 m, about 400 m are developed. The spectacular entrance looks like a huge staircase or pyramid, most likely it was built to stabilize the hillside after the earthquake. Inside, a long stone staircase leads down to the main passage. This passage is quite huge, up to 40 m high, and mostly horizontal. The passages have numerous speleothems, especially stalactites and stalagmites, which were the reason why it was originally used as a show cave.

We had some problems with the timeline of this cave. Despite many scientific papers about the cave, there seems to be quite different opinions about when key events actually took place. For example, it is quite unclear when Trinidad Grund purchased the cave, we read 1852, 1854 and 1860. Its unclear why she waited for years, until she finally developed the trails. There are even discrepancies about quite recent events since the 1980s. There are different opinions if the cave is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It's hard to check as Spain has several "regional" List entries where a bunch of caves of a region are listed as a single WHL entry. Unfortunately, the official documentation does not include a full list of cave names, which seems a little unsatisfactory to us. Another rather vague thing is the maximum number of visitors, while some pages give 1,000 per year, others give 15 per day. This does not sum up, as the cave is open 6 days per week and even with only one tour, this would equal 4,500 visitors per year. Also, there are weekdays with two tours, and some time ago there were even three tours. The only thing which seems undisputed is the maximum number of 15 per group. We can only guess that the cave climate was monitored and the numbers were changed accordingly. Obviously, the tours actually offered in the online booking system, are decisive, and unfortunately these cannot be assessed because the booking system does not allow this. In other words: try out and hope. Extremely unsatisfactory for foreign tourists, makes the planning of a Spain holiday quite complicated.