Cave castle

A cave castle (also cave castle ) is an incorporated into natural caves flight or residential castle. It belongs to the type of hillforts. Unlike other castle types ( such as water castles ) is exposed only on the input side, an attack a cave castle. The castle entrance was usually in the middle of the cliff, which the penetration very difficult. Such finds that caves are used as places of refuge since the Stone Age. The first medieval cave castles built in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 14th and 15th centuries this castle type was particularly prevalent in some regions of France and Switzerland.

Location and facilities

The actual cave castles were usually at the foot of a long prostrate rock wall and on the level of a more or less sloping scree. The type of a rock castle is rather rare in mountainous regions, only four plants are about in North Tyrol been detected: Altfinstermünz the top Inn Valley, hole in sub - Pinswang, Lueg on the burner and a cave fortress in the mansion wall at Schwendt / Kössen. In some areas of Switzerland and France, but offered the soft rock material favorable conditions for the investment of caves and cave fortresses. Thus, such castles as in Graubünden, Ticino, Valais or the Dordogne are much more common than in Bavaria and Tyrol.

The farm buildings and stables were mostly in the valley below the castle, as the cavern was often only accessible by steep and narrow paths. Archaeological excavations confirm the relatively high standard of living in some cave castles, other equipment may have been occupied only occasionally and served as pass blocking or monitoring of key road links.

Most cave castles have, for obvious reasons do not keep or any other tower structures. An exception here is the castle hole in Eichhofen in Bavaria, which is preceded by a handsome, round donjon.

Often the cave or grotto was just completed by a front wall and divided by stone or wooden partition walls inside. Some castles were, however, later expanded into representative residences and expanded, for example, the stone castle and the cave Predjama.

The rock castle in structurally closely related is the rock castle, also natural or artificially enhanced rock openings were often involved in the construction. In Central Europe, such rock castles have received numerous examples in the sandstone areas of South and Central Germany or Bohemia, including in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, the Palatinate Forest and the Haßbergen.

Cave castles and caves castles

In scientific parlance, a distinction is made between the cave and the cave castle. In a cave castle a complete building was constructed before or in a natural cave ( Predjama ), while in the cave castle the cave completed only by a front wall and divided by wooden or stone walls. In popular scientific usage, both terms are often used interchangeably, however.

Other examples

  • Castle Kronmetz
  • Castle Loch at Pinswang in the district of Reutte, Tyrol ( Austria )
  • Castle Lueg am Brenner
  • Castle Luegstein in Oberau village in Bavaria
  • Puxerloch (Cave Castles " Luegg " and " Schallaun " ) at Frojach in Styria
  • Stone castle in the Bavarian Stein an der Traun
  • Wich stone castle in Oberriet
  • Wolkenstein Castle (South Tyrol ) in Val Gardena

Ruin Balm Balm in the Canton of Solothurn ( Switzerland )

Castle Loch at Eichhofen, Bavaria

Castle stone grotto with stone heap, Canton Graubünden ( Switzerland )

Castle Fracstein in Buchen, Canton Graubünden ( Switzerland )

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