Shoes of Vegetable Fiber

The Cueva de los Murciélagos, located in the coastal mountain range of Contraviesa beside the town of Albuñol, was discovered in 1831 by a neighbour of the area who was collecting the layer of guano left by the bats at the cave entrance; this substance may have been the reason for the good preservation of the organic material objects left in its interior. In 1857, a mining company began the exploitation of the cave due to the discovery of lead material. Several rooms were opened up in the interior, where objects of great archaeological interest were found and destroyed, to which Manuel de Góngora refers in his work of 1868. He managed to recover some of the objects from the plunderers, and with reports from these people, he was able to reconstruct the circumstances of the discovery. Among the collection of materials recovered by Góngora, of special note, due to their exceptional state of preservation, are the objects made from esparto: various types of baskets, lids, mats and sandals. The two sandals from the Archaeological Museum of Granada are made from esparto with a compound central core, around which cord was wound in a spiral, by twisting or plaiting, completing the sole. Among the objects recovered, those made of oakwood can also be found, such as a half bowl and two awls which form part of the deposit in the Archaeological Museum of Granada. The site of La Cueva de los Murciélagos is exceptional as few prehistoric organic remains have been preserved in the Peninsula.