Ali Sadr Cave
The Ali Sadr Cave is a cave in a village with the same name located due
northeast of Hamedan, western Iran.
The cave walls can extend up to 40 meters high, and it contains several quite large
and deep lakes. The cave has a river flowing through it and most travel through
the cave system is done with a boat. Ali Sadr cave is situated between the
large cities Hamadan, Tehran,
and Qom making it a very popular
destination for Iranians.
The cave was originally discovered during the reign of Darius I (521-485 BC)
which can be verified by an old inscription at the entrance of the tunnel.
However, the knowledge of the existence of the tunnel was lost, and only
rediscovered in 1978 when a local shepherd followed the tunnel searching for
water or a lost goat.
In the summer of 2001, a German/British expedition surveyed the cave to be
11 kilometers long and by now 17 km of its water and land routs have been
explored. The main chamber of the cave is 100 meters by 50 meters and 40 meters
high and nowadays people may pass by boat and on foot over 11 km of corridors
of the cave.
A tour of the cave can be seen by pedal boats to a centrally located large
atrium.
Although Ali Sadr cave is one of the most wonderful tourist attractions in Iran,
it is among the inexpensive tourist sites throughout the globe. For the whole tour
with inside the cave and respective tourist rally it costs less than 20 USD as
in 2007.
One another special characteristic of Ali Sadr cave is that this amazing
natural phenomenon is the only cave in the world in which yachting is possible
in its underground waters.
Some 400,000 tourists visited the cave last year according to officials, predicting
that the amount would increase to 430,000 in the current year.
Although Ali-Sadr is one of the biggest and most
mysterious water caves in the world, despite that it has not been thoroughly
introduced to the people worldwide. Beside the natural significance of this
unique phenomenon, it should be pointed out that the discovery of historical
tools and works of art aging thousands of years, including jugs and pitchers,
indicates that humans lived in this place since 12000 years ago.
Furthermore,
the paintings of deer, gazelles and stags, the hunting scenes and the image of
bow and arrow on the walls and passages of the exit section and prove the point
that at the primitive historical ages and in the hunting era man was living in
this cave.
The water undergoing the cave has no smell and color and is totally tasteless exactly
like the pure water. At the same time the water is pretty transparent insofar as
someone can see by naked eyes into more than 10 m depth of the river.
