Historic Show Caves
Show Cave History
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| Image: A visit to Mammoth Cave, USA. |
Caves are known to man for ten thousands of years.
The history of the first cave visits is written on the walls of prehistoric
painted caves.
But later in history people became angry and fearful about caves.
They were thought to be the entrance to hades, the hell, the home
of trolls or other fabulous fairy tale creatures.
In this times many caves were dubbed Devils Hole, Unicorn Cave or
something similar.
And mostly people were too afraid to visit them.
But there are some extraordinary exceptions, which we tried to collect.
This is a list of early developments in cave tourism, what later became show
caves or commercial caves.
It is far from being complete, but we hope we added the most important
milestones.
| 1213 |
 Postojnska Jame |
Slovenia |
The world's oldest show cave with the first known of visit. |
| 1452 |
Jasovská Jaskyna |
Slovak Republic |
The oldest inscription in a cave. Visits maybe even earlier. |
| 20-MAY-1516 |
Sontheimer Höhle |
Germany |
Germany's oldest show cave, with the first official guided tour during a visit of Herzog Ulrich von Württemberg. |
| APR-1668 |
Baumannshöhle |
Germany |
Hans Jürgen Becker becomes the first authorized cave guide of the world. |
| 1812 |
Great Rutland Cavern |
Great Britain |
England's oldest show cave opened to the public. |
| 1832 |
Grotta Parolini |
Italy |
Italy's oldest show cave opened to the public. |
See also
