Qal'Eh-ye Safid (Cave at)

Various descriptions

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A comparatively extensive cave (note 1) in a kind of quartzitic crystalline marble. SITUATION: Somewhere near the sources of the Kabul River (note 2). LINDBERG (1958: 116-117) places the cave in the obsolete district of Panjao and about 75 km west and along the southern route from Kabul via Unai Pass to Bamiyan (note 3), at an elevation of about 90 m (barometric) above the road and on a certain hill Kouh-Qoul Kharideh (note 4), which lies on the way to Qal'éh Safid (note 5). CAVE DESCRIPTION: A spacious, funnel-shaped collapse doline (in American: sinkhole) drops to an approximately 10 m long crawl which leads across breakdown to a wide chambre de dislocation (ruckle chamber). Here, the passage becomes smaller and the dark zone is reached. On the left-hand side, left of a large boulder, enters a low but wide flat-out crawl (2 to 3 m wide, 0.5 m high) and another gallery (wider, higher, and longer) is found on the right-hand side of the same boulder. On the right of this gallery is oe more side-passage, where cave fauna was collected from a calcite decorated niche. Beyond this niche, increases the size of the cave to a spacious chamber, about 4 m wide, 3 to 4 m high and 10 to 12 m long. At the far end of this chamber the ceiling dives below the floor. Here indicated the altimeter of Dr. Lindberg a vertical difference of 20 m above the cave entrance. A human skeleton was found in the rubble of the terminal chamber which is decorated all over with speleothems, especially very thin and short stalactites that, especially those higher up, look like ice. The floor consists of soil and stones, and is, in parts, covered with large amounts of porcupine droppings and some bat guano. CAVE CLIMATE: The cave is humid with water dropping from the ceiling without reassembling. Air temperature in the dark chamber was 5.5°C and near the cave entrance 18.5°C on 4th April 1958. CAVE LIFE: Porcupine droppings indicate Hystrix (indet) and bat guano hints to Chiroptera. LINDBERG (1958:117) lists Coleoptera (Carabida, Ptinida), Diptera (Limnobiida, Chironomida), Archanida (Araneida), and Chiroptera. JUBERTHIE & DECU (2001: 1746, 1747, 1949) list Arachnida: Acari parasiti: Spinturnicidae: Spinturnix plecotinus C.L. Koch, collected from the bat (Chiroptera) Plecotus wardi Thomas; Insecta: Coleoptera: Pterostichinae: Sphodropsis elegans Coiffait; Vertebrata: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae: Plecotus wardi Thomas. e more side-passage, where cave fauna was collected from a calcite decorated niche. Beyond this niche, increases the size of the cave to a spacious chamber, about 4 m wide, 3 to 4 m high and 10 to 12 m long. At the far end of this chamber the ceiling dives below the floor. Here indicated the altimeter of Dr. Lindberg a vertical difference of 20 m above the cave entrance.A human skeleton was found in the rubble of the terminal chamber which is decorated all over with speleothems, especially very thin and short stalactites that, especially those higher up, look like ice. The floor consists of soil and stones, and is, in parts, covered with large amounts of porcupine droppings and some bat guano.