{"id":25970,"date":"2026-10-30T09:46:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T09:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/?p=25970"},"modified":"2026-10-30T10:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:45:46","slug":"the-caves-of-hella-in-aegissida-near-hella-iceland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/2026\/10\/30\/the-caves-of-hella-in-aegissida-near-hella-iceland\/","title":{"rendered":"The Caves Of Hella, in \u00c6giss\u00ed\u00f0a (near Hella), Iceland – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

continued<\/a>… It was sunny and warm at 50-degrees Fahrenheit. The drive was beautiful, with the snow capped mountains in the backdrop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We passed an area with several industrial looking operations, and it looked like they were running on geothermal power<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We passed over several scenic rivers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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And drove through a charming small town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But it seemed like the vast majority of the land that we passed was farmland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our first stop was the at The Caves of Hella, about 58 miles (94 kilometers) southeast of Reykjav\u00edk. The caves were located on a working farm in the town of \u00c6giss\u00ed\u00f0a, which was near the town of Hella. We pulled up to the little sales office and asked about the guided tour to see the caves on the property. She said one was about to begin right then! Tickets cost 15,900 ISK ($131.50 USD) for the three of us. She said she charged Keith (who was 14) the child price, and since we were in a rush, we didn’t clarify what the charge was for each individual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we began walking, the guide introduced himself and gave some background information. Like our guide at the Lava Tunnel<\/a>, he was hilariously funny. This farm has been owned by the same family since the 1800s \u2013 they\u2019ve had it for nearly 200 years. The guide made it clear that he was a local to this area. He explained that man-made caves have been found in many places across South Iceland, but an unusually large number were located at \u00c6giss\u00ed\u00f0a, where twelve caves have been discovered across several farms. Several of them were on this farm. We proceeded to the first cave, which was the door on the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The ground — and thus the caves under the ground — were sandstone. Sandstone was a sedimentary rock, which meant that over time, tiny fragments of rock were cemented together to form big rocks. While it was common for erosion to create caves in already formed sandstone, caves did not naturally form as the sandstone particles solidified into rock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sandstone was also soft and easily carved. He explained that a few generations ago, the farmer had kept up to 70 sheep at a time in this relatively small cave! The sheep rubbed up against the walls and deteriorated what had been on the walls when the cave was first discovered. He promised that in the rest of the caves, he’d point out the tool marks, indicating they were carved by people and not by erosion. He also said that in each of the cave, the walls contained writings and symbols that indicated what each cave had been used for, and that they had no clue what this cave was used for since the markings were gone now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first cave was small. The photo below was taken at the back of the cave, looking towards the entrance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He pointed out the chimney, which was critical for ventilation. He said that most of the caves have been found by their chimneys. Once found, they were excavated to remove the sediment that had gotten inside over the centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This cave was also found with a working well, which indicated that people had been living inside the cave. However, the well mysteriously stopped working a couple of years ago. In his hilarious manner, he said that when it stopped working, the scientists and geologists were mystified. So they asked the old people what happened because “old people know their shit.” The old people said that wells tended to stop working when the volcano was gearing up to erupt and that it would start working again after the eruption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next cave over (door on the right above) was not originally connected to this one, but the farmer had decided to carve a passage between the two. We proceeded through the hallway to the next cave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The second cave was notably larger than the first cave. Our guide explained that the caves varied significantly in size. The first photo was looking towards the door from the hallway, the second was looking deeper into the cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the things that wasn’t visible in those photos was that the room had a single chimney, so here was a photo from another angle where the chimney was more visible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If we remembered correctly, the family found this cave when one of their animals fell in the chimney. So, they lowered their four year old down on a rope to investigate what was down in the hole. It was mostly filled with dirt at that point. They cleared out the part from the chimney to the door. Once it was cleared, they kept hay in there. He said the older people in the town fondly talked about how they used to jump into the chimney into the hay for fun. Later, they realized the cave went deeper and did the back part of the cave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the far end of the cave was a set up that looked like it was probably a kitchen. There were also the remnants of plants in there that couldn’t have been grown in a cave, indicating that people were bringing ingredients down to cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you look closely at the photo above, you will notice that there was a board over the roof. That section of the roof had collapsed and fallen in. There was originally a series of stones under the chimney, the fallen in roof part and the back of the cave where the kitchen was — and the arrangement of the stone looked like a hearth. The Icelandic government took most of the stones and said they\u2019d return them soon\u2026 and that was years ago. The guide said he believed the roof had fallen in because, since they cooked there, there were multiple chimneys for ventilation, and thus the roof was weaker in that section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guide explained that the evidence in the caves indicated they were made by Celtics prior to the arrival of the Vikings. He believed that the caves had never been formally excavated by the Icelandic government because they went against the narrative that the Vikings were the first people to live on the island<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cited external evidence that supported this theory. He said that on the first page of the Landn\u00e1mab\u00f3k (which translated to “Book of Settlements” and chronicled the experiences of early Norse explorers and settlers in Iceland), it said that when they’d arrived, there were already priests on the islands. So the book itself disputed the narrative that the Vikings were the first inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that Icelanders were genetically 65% Celtic and only 35% Norse. This disparity was explained by saying that the Vikings had taken Celtic wives and slaves from Ireland. But our guide argued that the percentage of Celt was too high for that explanation to be likely — he believed it was more likely that the Celtics were already here and the Vikings integrated with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said that in another culture’s — we do’t remember which one now — ancient records, they spoke of visiting an island during the summers, but the island stopped being mentioned. He thought maybe the that culture regularly visited before the Vikings arrived, and stopped once the Vikings took over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, tunnels like these were found all over Ireland. He then pointed out that the graffiti on the walls look like Celtic words and symbols, including the carving above the kitchen hearth shown above. Here was another example, and he pointed out many more. He also showed us why the pattern of marks on the walls and ceiling indicated the cave was carved with tools and not natural erosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To the left of the kitchen was another room that wasn’t visible until you were at the hearth. In true Icelandic culture, there were casks of whiskey aging in there. They didn’t actually make the whiskey, they just aged it for the manufacturer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We exited the cave and marched a short way across the field to a small roof, which covered the entrance to the next cave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The guide said that this cave was likely a bedroom. We only peeked inside, we didn\u2019t physically enter it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We continued across the field to… to be continued…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

continued… It was sunny and warm at 50-degrees Fahrenheit. The drive was beautiful, with the snow capped mountains in the backdrop. We passed an area with several industrial looking operations, and it looked like they were running on geothermal power. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,39,1,19,44,429],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-europe","category-general","category-guided-tour","category-history","category-iceland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25970"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26091,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25970\/revisions\/26091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}