Ignatievka Cave (''Ignateva cave'', ''Ignatievskaya cave'', russian: Игнатьевская пещера, also known as ''Yamazy-Tash'') is a large

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

on the banks of the

Sim River The Sim ( ba, Эҫем, russian: Сим) is a river in Chelyabinsk Oblast and the Bashkortostan, Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia. It is a tributary of the Belaya (Kama), Belaya, part of the Volga Drainage basin, watershed. Its length is , and i ...

, a tributary of the Belaya river in the southern

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. In 1980 a parietal wall painting of a female figure was discovered. The twenty-eight red dots between her legs are believed to represent the female

menstrual cycle The menstrual cycle is a series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system that make pregnancy possible. The ovarian cycle controls the production and release of eggs a ...

. The cave also contains

microliths A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The ...

, remains of animals and more

cave painting In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...

s, as well as a stratum of

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

settlement.. Although some sources associate the paintings to the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...

, the age of the drawings continues to be debated. The

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

of the charcoal drawings has resulted in more recent numbers, between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago. The attempt to date the red pigment of the female figure yielded no result.. In this respect, the age of the drawings remains unclear so far. Ignateva Cave can be freely visited although it is best to travel via the small village of , which is off the main road past

Sim, Chelyabinsk Oblast Sim (russian: Сим) is a town in Ashinsky District of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Sim River, west of Chelyabinsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: History It was founded in 1759 as Simsky Zavod (, lit. ''Si ...

, heading eastwards, about . The track to the cave is very rough and has not been improved for years. The cave mouth is about above the small river backwater and reached by a metal ladder. On entering the cave visitors must stoop low as the ceiling lowers quickly to about in height, and then it increases again to or more. Part of the inner cave can only be reached by crawling through a very narrow space about in height but this provides views of some of the better red

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

markings. The local guide from Serpiyevka noted that the cave was not lived in (there were no fire markings), but hypothesized that it was a sacred site mainly used for religious ceremonies and adulthood rites from the markings. The

Kapova cave Kapova cave ( rus, Капова пещера, Kopova peshchera, also known as Shul'gan-Tash, ba, Шүлгәнташ, Shylgəntash) is a limestone karst cave in the Burzyansky District of Bashkortostan, Russia, ca. south-east of Ufa, in the south ...

is located some from the Ignatievka cave. File:Игнатьевская пещера (Ямазы-Таш).jpg, Alternative view of cave entrance File:Вход в пещеру..jpg, Looking out from the cave File:Рисунок первобытного человека в Игнатьевской пещере.jpg, Ochre figure of a person

References

{{Navbox prehistoric caves Caves of Russia Limestone caves Caves containing pictograms Landforms of Chelyabinsk Oblast Archaeological sites in Russia