KARAİN CAVE

Karain Cave is located about 30 km northwest of Antalya at Yağcı Village, subordinated to the settlement unit of Yeniköy. It is a prehistoric cave, located at a height of about 370 metres from the sea and about 80 metres up the slope, where the Western Taurus calcareous zone borders on the travertine plain. It was Professor I. Kılıç KÖKTEN, Professor of Prehistory at the Ankara Faculty of Language, History and Geography who began the research on Karain Cave in a systematical manner from 1946 up to 1973, when the layer of compact earth at the entrance to the cave was excavated. Excavations are still underway. According to findings revealed, it was understood that Karain Cave was continuously inhabited in the Middle Paleolithic (Stone) ages. It is possible to understand from the inscriptions and monograms on the outer walls that this inhabitation also continued during the classical ages and that the cave was used as a sacred votive and worshipping place. Cultural findings in Karain Cave include hand axes, various scrapers, jewellery and arrowheads made of flintstone, in addition to bones of animals such as hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses and elephants; pieces of fossilised bones belonging to homo sapiens, humans of the middle paleolithic era. Most of the findings unearthed at Karain Cave are displayed in the small museum located where the slope borders on the plain and some of them at the Prehistory Hall of the Antalya Museum. To the east of the cave are Kırkgözler Sazlığı (Reedbed), formed by the water of Düden and renowned for its wild duck hunting, and Kırkgöz Han (Inn), measuring 25x45 metres, built by the shore of this reedbed during the 12th century. The only pass in the area located to the North of the Inn going through the Taurus mountains and connecting Central Anatolia with the Mediterranean is Çubuk Pass at an altitude of 924 metres. The ancient road joining Pamphilia with Pisidia starts in the villages of Döşemealtı, east of the Pass, and climbs North, connecting to the Kremna/Bucak settlement. This antique road, paved with stone blocks during the Roman era, was in use until recently, thus the villages established in the area were called Döşemealtı (under-pavement) villages. It is thought that the building ruins found at the beginning of the antique road are the remains of the depot, customs building and garrison of that period. The Turkoman yörüks who have settled in the area today weave the famous Döşemealtı carpets.

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Links to
- Wandering in Antalya
- Wandering in Turkey
- the Hitchhiker's guide of the Elftowners
- Where should I visit

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