Barbarossa Cave

The Barbarossa Cave (German: Barbarossahöhle) is an anhydrite cave (gypsum cave) in the Kyffhäuser Hills near Rottleben in the east German state of Thuringia. It is a cave with large caverns, grottos and lakes. The anhydritehas formed gypsum on the surface due to the air moisture in the cave and, as a result, has increased in volume. The resulting layers of gypsum gradually separate from the underlying rock and hang like wallpaper from the walls and ceilings of the underground caverns.

It was discovered in 1865 as a gallery was being driven during prospecting work for kupferschiefer, a copper-bearing shale or bituminous marl. By 1866 it had been developed and opened as a show cave. It has a floor area of about 25,000 m². Of interest to visitors are the underground lakes whose gypsum content gives them an iridescent green colour, and a human made stone construction, known as Barbarossa's Table and Chair.

The twenty closest neighbours in the database:

Quedlinburg (Germany) (46 km), Wernigerode (Germany) (54 km), Mines of Rammelsberg (71 km), Goslar (Germany) (74 km), Kassel (Germany) (107 km), Hildesheim (Germany) (114 km), Autostadt Wolfsburg (119 km), Wittenberg (Germany) (124 km), Warburg and Wilhelmsthal Calden (130 km), Fulda (Germany) (133 km), Hannover Zoo (142 km), Hannover (Germany) (143 km), Celle (Germany) (154 km), Bayreuth (Germany) (163 km), German Oil Museum (165 km), Bamberg (Germany) (165 km), Potsdam (Germany) (179 km), Büdingen (Germany) (180 km), Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic) (181 km), Gelnhausen (Germany) (185 km)

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