This page was translated from Hebrew and has not been reviewed yet. The Hebrew page is the reference. עברית

Wadi el-Batam Cave, Southern Bik'a

Grid ref.: 1890/1586
Location: Southern Bik'a
Elevation: 21 m above sea level

Description of the cave:

Wadi el-Batam Cave is a small cave that developed by phreatic dissolution processes in limestone of Turonian age (Shivta Formation). The cave was discovered and mapped in April 2013 by Vladimir Boslov, Boaz Langford and Nevo Fishbein.

The cave has a large opening, conspicuous from afar, measuring 2.9X3.3 and rounded. The cave opening was exposed at the top of a sloping cliff standing about 50 m above the channel of Wadi el-Batam, in the middle of the southern bank of the stream canyon. The opening leads to an elongated chamber measuring 10.5X4.5 m, with a height of up to 5 m at its center. The floor of the chamber is horizontal and covered with coarse sediment mixed with stones and a great deal of organic material. The cave ceiling is rounded and slopes toward its walls. Despite the crumbling of the rock making up the walls and ceiling of the cave, a generally rounded morphology has been preserved in it. In the ceiling on the western side of the center of the chamber there is a tiny opening through which light penetrates into the cave space.

Pigeons nest in the walls of the cave space, mainly around the opening.

Notes:

The cave opening can be reached by a narrow asphalt road that leaves the access road to Tomer and continues east to a water borehole standing in the channel of Wadi el-Batam.
No bats were observed in the cave and no guano was seen.

Written by: Boaz Langford