Oach Cave Beit Arif, Western Samaria
- Grid ref.
- 147531/156928
- Location
- Nahal Beit Arif
- Elevation
- 123 m above sea level
Cave mapView the map (PDF)Description of the cave:
Oach Cave is a small cave that developed in limestone of Turonian age (Bina Fm.). The cave is built of a single, horizontal space that developed on an east-west axis and has a wide entrance of about 4.5X2.3 m, arch-shaped, from which light penetrates the entire area of the cave. The entrance opens at the bottom of a rock step about 6 m high located in the upper part of the slope of the eastern bank of Nahal Beit Arif, before the stream's exit to the coastal plain.
The floor of the cave space is covered with soil and cattle and porcupine droppings, its ceiling is horizontal and at various points water drips from it, creating concentrations of mold on the cave ceiling, which attracts many individuals of the Oriental hornet clinging to the water source. On the northern side of the floor of the cave space there is a rock outcrop on which about 10 cupmarks are hewn, rounded and elliptical, of various sizes. The dimensions of the smallest are 4.5X4.5 cm and a depth of 1.5 cm, the largest 0.20X0.21 m and it is partly plugged with fine sediment and small stones. Between some of the cupmarks, shallow channels about 1.5 cm wide connect. The cupmarks are hewn in a rock surface sloping from the cave wall toward its center. At the rear end of the cave space there is a narrow passage extending east along a fissure, about 3 m, until it becomes too narrow to pass.
About 2 m south of the cave entrance there is another space of about 2X1 m and a height of about 1 m. In the floor of this space two rounded cupmarks adjacent to each other are hewn. The dimensions of the large cupmark are about 0.4X0.4 m and its depth 0.2 m. These cupmarks were hewn through cave deposits (flowstone sheets) that cover the floor of the space.
Outside the cave, about 3 m southwest opposite its entrance, there is a prehistoric breccia surface containing flint flakes and ancient bones. A similar rock surface also exists in Barn Owl Cave, about 600 m south of Oach Cave (A.Sh.).
Access:
The cave surroundings can be reached by a convenient dirt road (about 100 m from its entrance) through the Shoham industrial zone. From the road the climb to the cave is on a comfortable, though somewhat steep, slope.
* No bats were seen in the cave.
Written by: Boaz Langford
