Womb Cave description and photos – Bulgaria: Kardzhali. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photos and a map showing the nearest significant objects.
The Utroba cave is located near the village of Nenkovo in southern Bulgaria, in the vicinity of the town of Kardzhali, at a distance of about 17 kilometers from it. It was discovered in 2001.
The cave owes its name to its appearance – it is a long natural natural gap in the rock, located horizontally, which resembles a woman’s womb. The ancient Thracians also had a hand in decorating the walls of the cave. It leads into a cave deep about 22 m. and wide 2.5 m. A human hand shaped it into a place of conception constantly washed by water seeping through the walls.
Every day through the hole the sun penetrates here at noon, but only once a year – March 20 or 21, on the vernal equinox, the sunbeam expands, falls exactly on the altar and stays on it for several minutes. The mother earth goddess is personified in the cave, and the sun god impregnates her, therefore the ancient Thracians saw this procedure as a metaphor of fertility.
A sacred marriage is made between the sun and the rock, which symbolizes the rebirth of life. This belief is supported by the very shape of the cave. Probably a later version of an earlier worship, the mythology of strange pregnancies and births in caverns. Young men and women were initiated into adulthood in ancient rites that involved taking them to a cave and leaving them there for a while.
The Womb Cave is a unique natural and cultural phenomenon, there are no other similar ones in the world.
