The Big Hole of Cyrene

The Big Hole of Cyrene: not much is known about this massive hole and, to our knowledge, there are no records or information of anyone going down the hole. The place is located about 10 km east of Cyrene, in a private farm. It is locally known as Haw Hajyre (or Hawa Al-H'ajer), which could mean a hole (or depression) in the rocks. However, we have received an email from Mr. Tomasz Paul informing us that his father Mr. Krzysztof Paul had indeed reached the bottom of the hole in the 4th of November 1983; and as a proof of that his father had left a letter in a jar at the bottom of the hole, with his name, address and a request for letter if someone manages to do it again. He had included some images in his email to an article published in Jaskinie ('Cave') Magazine (2006), which gives more information about the successful attempt. Here are some of the images we have received:

According to  (http://www.sktj.pl/epimenides/jaskinie/jask43.htm):

"Krzysztof Paul describes his descent to a 220 m deep pothole in Libya in November 1983. The pothole lies in the Green Mountains, near Cyrene and Labraq. He made the descent using ropes for tying camels. The well seemed to be a karst cave with collapsed roof. Its wide bottom was covered with loose rocks."

 

The Big Hole of Cyrene is in effect a vertical cave or a pothole of the type known as Karst Geology. The sides of the hole show that they were previously subjected to water or wind scouring. Examples of similar holes include the Golondrinas in Mexico (350 meters deep), and the Gaping Ghyll in  England (50 meters deep). Karst regions are distinctive landscape features, many of which have flutes, tunnels, and grikes (generally called karren or lapiez), sinkholes or cenotes (closed basins), dolines, vertical shafts, disappearing streams, and karst towers. It might not be possible to know what lies hidden at the base of the hole for some time to come, but many of these features were found to hide complex underground drainage systems (such as karst aquifers) and extensive caves and cavern systems beneath the surface. In fact the karst topography itself is characterized by subterranean limestone caverns carved by groundwater. The name "karst", originally from the Indo-European karra ('stone'), was derived from Jovan Cvijić's study "Das Karstphänomen (1893)", which established that rock dissolution was the key process responsible for creating most of the dolines.

Watch our short video of the Big Hole.

The Big Hole, Cyrene.

A view of the Big Hole in relation to the nearby landscape, to indicate the size of the hole.