Kapova Cave

(also Kapovaia Cave and Shul’gan-Tash), one of the largest caves in the Southern Urals, on the right bank of the Belaia River, in the Bashkir ASSR. The cave was formed in the limestones and dolomites of Devonian age. The corridors and grottos are located on two levels and total more than 2 km long.

The zoologist A. V. Riumin discovered Paleolithic paintings in Kapova Cave in 1959. The paintings were studied by O. N. Bader between 1960 and 1974. There are drawings of mammoths, horses, and rhinoceroses on the second level of the cave, 300 m down from the entrance. The figures measure 44 to 112 cm long. The representations are silhouettes completely filled in with red pigment or undelineated contours. The presence of the mammoth and rhinoceros in the paintings makes it possible to date those of the second level to the Upper Paleolithic (probably, the time of the early Magdalenian). Red geometric representations have been discovered in the rear halls of the first level; these representations are in the form of ladders, huts (?), triangles, diagonal lines, and anthropomorphic figures. They also probably date from the Paleolithic. There are similar drawings on the second level of the cave.