Al Kittan

Useful Information

Location:	Wilayat Ibri, Al Dhahirah Governorate. 8 km from Ibri. ()
Open:	not developed, closed. [2023]
Fee:	not developed, closed. [2023]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	bring torch
Dimension:
Guided tours:	n/a
Photography:	n/a
Accessibility:
Bibliography:	Andreas Wolf (2009): Die Al Kittan-Höhle, Oman, Mitteilungen des Verbandes der deutschen Höhlen- und Karstforscher e.V., Jahrgang 55; 2009, Heft 2, Seite 56ff. ISSN 0505-2211, München.
Address:
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

Description

Al Kittan is a non-show-cave. The cave was visited by locals, then some cavers, and finally by domestic tourists. Then it was proposed as a new show cave, after the success at Al Hoota Cave. A feasibility study was made by German cavers, which was declared top secret. This was kind of sad, as the contract actually stated that the publication of the work is allowed, and it had already been published in German. We created a page for the new show cave on showcaves.com after reading this article.

Then the whole situation went weird, in a way which seems to be typically Omani, as we learned. The officials were not willing to pay for the evaluation, despite the contract, as long as there was any publication on the cave. We were asked by the cavers to remove our page, which we did. And then the whole project died silently.

In other words, there is no show cave Al Kittan, nor has there been such a thing ever. All the pages on the web are copied from a single source which is unreliable, and goes like this:

Al Kittan Cave is located in wilayat Ibri, the Al Dhahirah Governorate. A distance of 8 kilometres separates it from Ibri. The cave’s uniqueness lies in its extreme luminosity that looks like marble, which earned it the name of "the marble cave". Al Kittan Cave houses beautiful geological formations and rock engravings. It’s noteworthy to mention here that this cave is not easily accessible and we strongly recommend using a guide.

The last thing is true, the cave is hard to find and requires caving. The marble bit is nonsense, its just calcite speleothems like always. Probably it is a weird reference that the cave also has gypsum speleothems, but they look even less like marble than calcite. The "marble" myth is not even unique nonsense, just common nonsense. The location is extremely vague, and there is never contact info for anyone offering guided tours, which is obviously because nobody is offering guided tours.

In other words: there is no second show cave in Oman, and this cave, despite being listed on numerous pages, is a wild cave and not accessible. We are not sure, but we heard rumours that it was actually closed by a gate.