---
name: "Königshöhle"
subtitle: "The cave that lent a Copper Age culture its name, with a hole in the roof the Devil is blamed for"
date: 2026-07-22
shortlist: true
promotedTo: konigshohle-baden-bei-wien
link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/konigshohle-kings-cave"
linkText: "Atlas Obscura"
source: "Atlas Obscura"
topics: [travel-and-places, history-and-archives]
tags: [austria, archaeology, caves, folklore]
description: "A cave outside Baden bei Wien whose finds gave the central-Danube Copper Age its name — and whose four-metre ceiling hole has a much better local explanation."
---

A Baden amateur dug this cave out almost completely in January 1892 and misread what he found; professionals catalogued the material in the 1920s, and the central-Danube Copper Age has been the *Baden culture* ever since, named for the town below. His brother collected the better explanation. The Devil wore the cave's boulder as a hat to show off his strength, God lifted it onto one finger and set it down, and the four-metre hole he left is still open to the sky.
