Key facts
- Alternative name
- Russian : Капова пещера/Kapova Cave
- Location
- Burzyansky District
- Region
- Bashkortostan , Russia
- Type
- limestone cave
- Periods
- Paleolithic
- Official name
- Rock Paintings of Shulgan-Tash Cave
- Criteria
- Cultural: (iii)
- Inscription
- 2025 (47th Session )
via Wikipedia infobox
~19 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Shulgan-Tash Cave (Bashkir: Шүлгәнташ, romanized: Şölgəntaş, [ʃɵl.ɣæn.ˈtʰɑʂ]), also known as Kapova Cave (Russian: Капова пещера, romanized: Kapova peshchera), is a limestone karst cave in the Burzyansky District of Bashkortostan, Russia. It is located in the southern Ural Mountains, on the Belaya River in the Shulgan-Tash Nature Reserve, approximately 200 km (120 mi) south-east of Ufa.
The cave is best known for the Upper Paleolithic rock paintings and drawings (more than 190, mostly in a precarious state of preservation), including the only known prehistoric painting of a (two-humped) camel. They were added to the World Heritage List in 2025. Approximately 30–50 images are relatively well-preserved. The most famous of them—of mammoths, horses, rhinoceroses, bison, and a camel—are located quite far from the entrance (300 meters and more). These images are made with red ochre, sometimes with outlines in charcoal.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kapova Cave” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.