N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
Turkish cellars, wells and caverns - the Castle Caves of Buda
cious documents of industrial history. The section called Miner is the shaft of the medieval iron mine where the miners broadened out their shafts following the limonite and hematite veins here. The deepest bit of the shaft is called Draughty where the top wall consists of sandstone in many places. The Y-Branch the Vortex Corridor and the Chamber of Paulines considerably differ from the rest of the cave. Pisolite stalagmite and other not particularly large but in shape varied stalagmite formations (flag, candle, flow) and helectites (convoluted, irregularly shaped stalactites) formed in the winds blowing in the cave welcome experienced cave visitors. It is hoped that the entrance section of this cave so rich in geological, morphological and mineralogical finds as well as historical associations of archaeological, religious, urban and industrial history will soon be opened to the public. Turkish cellars, wells and caverns — the Castle Caves of Buda The millions of tourists each year visiting the streets of the former burgers town on Castle Hill — itself part of the UN World Heritage — can have little idea that what they are walking above is riddled with holes much like a giant piece of Swiss cheese. Besides a few modest signs, together with the cool air gushing forth from basement windows and the entrances to the wine cellars below the restaurants, there is little to alert the visitor to this fact. What prevented erosion of the loose alluvia and the Buda marl, constituting the bulk of the rock in the hill, was the 10-15-metre thick fresh-water limestone capping deposited by the hot springs welling up at the height of what became Castle Hill. The natural cavities later found, enlarged and interconnected with shafts by the people settling down on the hill as they dug out their cellars and bored their wells was dissolved by the repeated thermal activity from the limestone that had been deposited by the same activity earlier. The subterranean cavities of Castle Hill are arranged in three layers. Progressing from top to bottom, the first such layer to be found is that of the cellars beneath the houses at a depth of 3 to 5 metres. From these cellars we can descend to the deep or "Turkish" cellars, 8-10 metres below the surface. Under these and beneath the bottom of the fresh-water limestone rock are, hidden by the chambers with ceilings often riddled with dissolved holes, the 25
