# Barbarossa Cave

- **Country:** Germany
- **Length:** 1100 m
- **Geology:** Anhydrite (Werra Formation)endogenous stratigraphic boundary cave (Schlotte Wimmelburger Type)
- **Website:** [http://www.barbarossahoehle.de/ www.barbarossahoehle.de]
- **Features:** * Gipslappen
- **Lighting:** electric (since 1895)
- **Location:** Kyffhäuser, Germany
- **Visitors:** 70,000 (2011)
- **Discovery:** 1865
- **Show Cave:** 1866
- **Other Name:** Barbarossahöhle
- **Photo Caption:** Flakes of gypsum in the Barbarossa Cave (2005)
- **Show Cave Length:** 600 m

The Barbarossa Cave is an anhydrite cave (gypsum cave) in the Kyffhäuser Hills near Rottleben in the east German state of Thuringia. It is a cave with large caverns, grottos and lakes. The anhydrite has formed gypsum on the surface due to the air moisture in the cave and, as a result, has increased in volume. The resulting layers of gypsum gradually separate from the underlying rock and hang like wallpaper from the walls and ceilings of the caverns.

![Photo of Barbarossa Cave](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Barbarossahoehle.jpg)

**Source:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarossa_Cave (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)