I’ve hiked the Peñas Blancas (white cliffs) in Murcia, southeastern Spain a few times - the mountain is riddled with old mine workings and tunnels - many of which have individual names such as Cuevas Blancas (white caves), Cueva de las Moscas (Cave of Flies), and one that is perplexing me, named Cueva del VAT (on maps it’s written like that, with VAT in capitals, so I assume that could be an acronym).
Except that’s as far as I can get with it; There are some photos tagged on Google maps showing the inside of the cave (which is as I remember it - just a sort of rough horizontal drift mine tunnel, but I can’t find anything about why this tunnel is named Cave of VAT.
It doesn’t help that VAT means sales tax here in the UK, so if I google ‘what does the acronym VAT signify in Spain’ - the results are not answering that question but instead trying to help me understand Spanish sales taxes (which aren’t called VAT, they are IVA)
The mines are pretty old - worked from about 2000 years ago until the early 20th century, so it’s possible that the naming of these old mines as caves happened as long as a century ago (I don’t imagine they were named until after mining ceased).
Any ideas on Cueva Del VAT?
The only thing I can contribute is I found this digital copy of a 1961 book The Art of the Stone Age which contains the name “Cueva del Vat del Charco del Agua Amarga”. The name kinda makes sense if “Vat” actually means “vat” (the English word for a large container). But I don’t know why the name would have an English word in it.
I think that says ‘val’, but I appreciate the effort
Not that it helps much but could that be UAT (as in VNITED STATES)?
Except that in Spain that’s Estados Unidos or EE.UU
But I’ve no ideas on the original question.
Sure, but I suppose the V could be a U (especially if the name is really old - some of the mines are Roman)
One possibility that crossed my mind, although it’s a very farfetched one…
If the cave had been named by an english speaker, and they called it ‘the bat cave’, ‘bat’* could have been transliterated as ‘vat’ by a local Spanish person, since B and V are the same thing (both B) in castillian Spanish.
That wouldn’t explain why the word VAT is capitalised, and it’s altogether a bit unlikely anyway.
However if a local speaks the name of that cave, they will say (what sounds the same as) “Cueva del BAT”
(*the Spanish word for bat is murcielago)
When I put “cueva del VAT” into Google I get matches for “Cueva del valle de Tubio”
That feels like Google trying to be helpful and assuming you mistyped or misremembered, owing to their being a single-digit number of results to your actual search.
I’m going to Spain next week, I’m going to see if any locals can tell me the origin on the name.
I wonder whether it is a mistake by Google. As a native speaker I can assure you that the abreviation VAT does not mean anything common, vat is not a Spanish word, nor is bat. If the locals tell you anything about the meaning of this name I would be curious to know. I have not found anything meaningful with the usual search engines.
Open Street Map does not help either.
I also find it interesting that they are locally called Cuevas (Caves) when they are really mines. Do you know what they were mining there?
Apart from that, now, after the great summer heat, could be the best time of the year to visit, so enjoy!
Iron, lead and silver I believe; possibly also copper.
It is a mystery for sure. I wonder if there is some historic individual in the region who has the initials V A T. I’m going to get up there when I visit as the hiking trails have been recently restored and some information signs added.
Look what rabbit holes (pdf) you make wander into! Still, no VAT cave to be found.
Just for information:
Sima is a hole in the ground that goes very steeply downwards. It may stabilize at the bottom and become a cave you can explore walking.
Gruta is a big, broad cave, not necessarily very deep, but it can be.
Caverna and cueva are synonyms: cave. Long and narrow.
OK. I’m in southern Spain right now and I hiked up to see this cave today. There are some information signs along the hiking trail, but none of them mention anything about the names of the caves (they only mention the caves in a warning note sternly saying to stay out of them.
Cueva de Las Moscas is just a tunnel that goes horizontally into the hillside (a drift mineshaft I think)
Cueva del VAT is like a ravine cut into the crest of a hill, with vertical walls deep enough that you’d die if you fell into it. In one of the walls there is a rectangular hole that looks like it is a shaft that goes off into the hillside.
There are a few similar cuttings in the crests of the hills,. They appear to just be places where a drift mine would have collapsed due to having too thin a roof, so they cut a deep trench instead.
No further clues about the naming of the cave, or indeed if that really is the name, and not just something that’s only on Google maps.