In the village Kastria of Achaia, 17 km from Kalavrita, 105 km from Patras and 9 Km from Kleitoria, lies the famous "Cave of the Lakes".
It is a rare creation of Nature. Apart from its labyrinth of corridors, its mysterious galleries and its strange stalactite formations, the "Cave of the Lakes" has something exclusively unique that does not exist in other well known caves. Inside the cave there is a string of cascading lakes forming three different levels that establish its uniqueness in the world.
The cave is an old subterranean river whose explored length is 1980 meters. In winter when the snow melts, the cave is transformed into a subterranean river with natural waterfalls. In the summer months, part of the cave dries up revealing a lace-work of stone-basins and dams of up to 4 m. in height. The rest of the cave retains water permanently throughout the year in 13 picturesque lakes.
TOURIST ROUTE
The developed part of the cave is currently 500 meters long. It includes artistic lighting. The visitor enters the cave through an artificial tunnel which leads directly to the second floor. The dimensions of this part of the cavern create awe, rapture, admiration. The passage from lake to lake is possible by small man-made bridges.
PALEONTOLOGICAL INTEREST
At the cave's lower floor, human and animal fossils were found, among which that of a hippopotamus. This part of the cave is intended to become a biological cave laboratory of international standing.
THE CAVE'S LEGEND
The legend says that the daughters of Proitos, king of Tirynth, Lyssippi, Ifinoy and Ifianassa, bragged that they were more beautiful than the Goddess Hera and scorned the worship of the God Dionysus. Zeus's mate didn't forgive their vanity and took their sanity, causing them to believe that they were heifers running wild on the mountains and meadows of Peloponnisos, infecting the women of Argolida with the craze of infanticide. Someday they arrived at the cave of Aroanios were they were found by Melambodas who cured them. He then led them to the village Loussoi
MUSEUM
The cave formation is initially due to tectonic crevices followed by chemical and mechanical erosion caused by the subterranean and surface waters of the hydrologic basin of Aroanios river. These natural events created the Cave of the Lakes, whose entrance has been excavated. Chronologically, this seems to have taken place during the Glacier Period (1,5 million years ago).
From the excavation material from the natural entry of the Cave of the Lakes, we find out that:
a) man used it from the Neolithic Period, during all the First Meso-Helladic and up till the Hystero-Helladic period.
b) the population consisted of young people, children, preadolescent and young adults.
c) the population morphologically shows biological relation and continuance in the parents, and finally,
d) the distribution of certain epigenetic traits in the bones, substantiates that between the members of the population existed endogamous relation. The increased paleo-pathology of the bones and mostly the occurrence of a strong "cancellous hyperostosis" testify to the hard lifetime of these populations.
also
1) during the MINDELIO STRATUM (450 thousand years ago) till the RISSIO STRATUM (250 thousand years ago) of the PLEISTOCENE PERIOD, the area had a warm, damp climate,
2) the presence of the Hippopotamus and
3) during the end of the NEOLITHIC and following into the BRONZE PERIOD, the cave was a place of settlement for man and particularly a place where he kept animals (barn) of the major domesticated breeds of the area. Thus we find that there existed deer - wolves - foxes and ravenous birds.
Regarding the Neolithic Economy (the survival of man), it was based on the following methods:
a) an Economy based on game and collection (fruit, herbage, ..)
b) an Economy based on production
Regarding the local area, based on the data that we have, we must probably converge towards the second.
For this page, we used the site www.Kastriacave.gr , where you can find more information.
