N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

Turkish cellars, wells and caverns - the Castle Caves of Buda

■ entrance to the lower cellán

naturally formed caves, which were then artificially enlarged by the easy removal of their soft stoking. The wells sunk from the cellars tapped into abundant water deposits and the cavities were ventilated via air ducts.

The first signs of human activity are from times predating the formation of the holes in Castle Hill. The lower-palaeolithic finds — primitive flint tools and a small pierced bone disk — unearthed by Ottokár Kadié in 1939 were buried in the alluvia in what was to become the Devil's Ditch before the fresh-water limestone cap covering Castle Hill was deposited. (It was on account of these finds that László Vértes named the world-famous, half-million year old Vér- tesszöllős find discovered in 1963 "Buda Industry’’.)

It was probably when digging the foundations of their houses that the medieval population of Castle Hill discovered the holes washed out by water below the layer of fresh-water limestone. These wide but low cavities were deepened towards the loose alluvia beneath the hard limestone rock, and these rock cellars were made accessible via entrances opened from the

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