Quri Qala Cave or QuraQala ( Kurdish: Şikefta QureQela, ئەشکەوتی قوڕەقەڵا Persian: غار قوری قلعه) is a cave located northwest of

Ravansar Ravansar ( fa, روانسر; also Romanized as Ravānsar and Rawānsīr) is a city and capital of Ravansar County, Kermanshah Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 16,383, in 3,838 families. Archaeology and history Ravansar ha ...

, Iran, and is one of the longest caves in western Asia. First explored in the 1950s, in 1989 it was further opened by an Iranian team. It contains three main chambers, with

calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...

crystals,

stalactite A stalactite (, ; from the Greek 'stalaktos' ('dripping') via ''stalassein'' ('to drip') is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble an ...

s and waterfalls. It is known for its colony of

Mouse-eared bat The mouse-eared bats or myotises are a diverse and widespread genus (''Myotis'') of bats within the family Vespertilionidae. The noun "''myotis''" itself is a New Latin construction, from the Greek "''muós'' (meaning "mouse") and "''oûs''" (mea ...

,Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA): ''Glorious Quri Qal-e Cave'', published on 7 August 2018
visited on 30 June 2023. and for a number of archaeological finds, including silver vessels dating to the late

Sassanian period The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

. These silver vessels are related to the late Sasanian period and decorated with a hawk catching a bird, birds, lions and a phoenix, suggests that they were probably offered to a Mithra temple located in the cave. Sasanian and Arab-Tabarian coins have also been found in the cave. The cave might have been a Mithra temple occupied from the late Sasanian period until probably the second century Hijrah.

References

Caves of Iran, Quri Qale Cave
*Akbarzadeh, D., T. Daryaee, and J. A. Lerner, 2001, Two Recently Discovered Inscribed Sasanian Silver Bowls, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, vol. 15, pp. 71–76 *Alibaigi, S., Moradi Bisotuni, A., Rahimi, F., Khosravi, Sh., Alibaigi H (2017) The Late Sasanian Treasury of Qouri Qaleh Cave: Votive Offerings for a Mithra Temple in Kermanshah, Western Iran. Iran, 55 (2): 227–252. *Rahimi, F., 2004 Technical Examination and Provenance Studies on Sasanian Silver Vessels from Quri Qaleh, In T. Stollner, R. Slotta, and A. Vatandoust (eds), Persian Antiques Splendor, mining crafts and archeology in ancient Iran, vol. I, pp. 456–460, Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Bochum. Caves of Iran Landforms of Kermanshah province {{Ravansar-geo-stub