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The Magura cave is a notable natural and historical site in northwest Bulgaria.
It was formed in the limestone Rabisha Hill (461m. above sea-level). It is a small monocline remaining of the mezozoic mantle of the Belogradchik Fold. The total length of the galleries discovered up to now is over 2600m. on an areaof the 133,5 hectares. The morphology of the cave includes one main gallery with six various-sized halls and three lateral galleries around it. The average annual temperature of the cave is about 12 C, the air humidity reaches 80%, and the displacement – 56 m. In the past the Magura cave was inhabited by predatory mammals – cave bear, cave hyena. Today fauna is represented by two species of troglobiontes – bureschia and white diplura. A constant inhabitant of the cave is the collembola, as well as four kinds of bats (greater and
lesser bat, greater mouse-eared bat and Schreiber’s bat).
The location and the favourable life conditions are the factors that led to its inhabitation by humans. The earliest traces of man’s presence in the cave relate to the Late Palaeolithic Age (8000 B.C.) At that time cave was used mainly as a temporary shelter. The drawings in the Landslip Gallery date back to that period. During the following epochs – the Neolithic and Eneolithic Ages – the Magura cave turned into a constant dwelling of the prehistoric man who expressed state of mind in creating scenes of dancing people, hunters and animals.
The settlement discovered in the Reef is a proof of settlement life during the Early Bronze Age (3200-2100 B.C.)
Having abandoned the cave for the Roman Age, the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, people settled the area outside the entrance and the slopes around and built fortifications along the Hill Top.