Coliboaia Cave
cave in Romania
Coliboaia Cave (Romanian: Peștera Coliboaia, pronounced [koliˈbo̯aja]) is in Apuseni Natural Park, Câmpani, Bihor County, Romania. It may contain the oldest known cave paintings of Central Europe, radiocarbon dated to 32,000 and 35,000 years BP, corresponding to the Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures of the Paleolithic period.
Research history
The Coliboaia Cave was first mentioned in literature before 1900, but only in 1981 was it extensively investigated by Gabor Halasi. The cave was not widely known until September 2009, when prehistoric mural cave paintings were discovered. It was quickly put under protection by the Romanian Federation of Speleology.
Drawings
The drawings in the Art Gallery are representations of animals, done in black and likely with charcoal. Some of the animals depicted include bison, bears, and rhinoceros, while the subject of other drawings remains unknown. The images are on both walls of the cave and do not appear to have any type of symmetrical pattern.
On the right wall, there is a drawing of a bison. The picture is 1.43 to 2.02 m (4.69 to 6.63 ft) above the ground and executed in bluish-gray lines.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13229605. Authority coordinates are 46.531, 22.596. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1981 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coliboaia Cave” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.