Cueva Santa del Cabriel

A cave in the ravine

Cueva Santa del Cabriel, also called Fuencaliente or Mira cave, opens at about 860 metres in the ravine of the same name, within Mira. An entrance 1.60 metres high leads to a passage about 11 metres long, widened in the late 18th century, and a chamber about 30 metres wide and 10 high. Galleries lie below, yielding almost everything known about it.

An Iberian sanctuary

Between the late 5th and 2nd centuries BC it was an Iberian sanctuary. 122 goblet-shaped vessels, 89 plates and 25 pots were left there. Earlier, between the Copper and Bronze Ages, it may have served for burial: a copper axe appeared inside a stalagmite column. The cave lies near the Pajazo ford, a main Cabriel crossing on a route between the Requena-Utiel plateau and Castile.

It has never been excavated. Knowledge comes from privately collected objects, a school collection and looting with explosives in the 1970s.

The solstice sun

The entrance passage, about 12 metres long, faces sunset at the summer solstice, when light reaches the chamber’s north wall. Whether the Iberians sought this is unknown.

The hermitage and pilgrimage

Around the 14th century the cave became a hermitage of the Virgin. In the mid-19th it had two rooms for the hermit and pilgrims and two altars, one among stalactites and another to San Marcos. In the early 20th century people from Fuenterrobles came on pilgrimage with decorated carts, heard Mass in the cave, sang the mayos, May songs, and ate outdoors; the pilgrimage continues in May.

Beside the cave stood Fuencaliente. Contreras reservoir has covered it since 1975.

Plan your visit

Before you travel

Both archaeological site and hermitage: collect nothing, do not enter with fire or touch the rock. Ask Mira town hall about access and the pilgrimage date.

Combine with

Continue with the village of Mira and Narboneta, a few kilometres away.