History of Postojna Cave
In the geological sense the history of the cave dates back millions of years – an inconceivable amount of time for the human mind. The first traces of settlement in the Pivka Basin in the Ice Age (the Pleistocene) were found in Postojna Cave. During the Ice Age, the whole of the Notranjska-Primorska karst, and with it the area along the river Pivka, was a territory where Ice Age man was able to find shelter under rocky overhangs and in underground caves, which thus became his dwellings. Postojna Cave has long been famous as the site in which the remains of several species of Ice Age animals (Pleistocene fauna) have been found.
Postojna Cave also has a long and interesting history relating to the discovery of its various sections and to the visitors who have been coming here from far and wide since long ago. Even in prehistoric times its entrance sections served as a refuge for human visitors. The first travellers' signatures in the cave date from the 13th century. The first descriptions of the cave, published in The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola in 1689, contain a strong element of fantasy. They are the work of the polymath Johann Weichard Valvasor, the first promoter of Karst tourism. He considered Postojna Cave to be the largest and longest but at the same time the grimmest of all the caves he had seen. The Viennese mathematician J. N. Nagel was commissioned by Franz I, the husband of Austrian empress Maria Theresa, to research natural phenomena in Carniola. Among other places, he visited Postojna Cave and the Black Cave. His 1748 drawing of the entrance section to Postojna Cave, the Passage of Old Signatures and the Great Hall still survives today.
Before the discovery of the continuation of its inner sections, Postojna Cave was also visited by other prominent individuals passing through the area or indeed living in Slovenia. Among them were Hacquet and Gruber.
This was what was known about the cave up until the second decade of the 19th century, when, following the new discoveries, the foundations were laid to transform Postojna Cave into a show cave – the building of paths, the installation of lighting and the organisation of guides.