Ignatievka Cave


Ignatievka Cave is a large limestone cave on the banks of the Sim River, a tributary of the Belaya river in the southern Ural Mountains of Russia. In 1980 a parietal wall painting of a venus figure was discovered. The twenty-eight red dots between her legs are believed to represent the female menstrual cycle.
The cave also contains microliths, remains of animals and more cave paintings, as well as a stratum of Iron Age settlement. Although some sources associate the paintings to the Upper Paleolithic, radiocarbon dating of the pigments has resulted in more recent numbers, between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago.
Ignateva Cave can be freely visited although it is best to travel via the small village of, which is off the main road past Sim, Chelyabinsk Oblast, heading eastwards, about. The track to the cave is very rough and has not been improved for years. The cave mouth is about above the small river backwater and reached by a metal ladder. On entering the cave visitors must stoop low as the ceiling lowers quickly to about in height, and then it increases again to or more. Part of the inner cave can only be reached by crawling through a very narrow space about in height but this provides views of some of the better red ochre markings. The local guide from Serpiyevka noted that the cave was not lived in, but hypothesized that it was a sacred site mainly used for religious ceremonies and adulthood rites from the markings.
The Kapova cave is located some from the Ignatievka cave.