Piraw cave is located 21 kilometers on north of Kermashan (Kermanshah) in East Kurdistan between Taqwesan and Bestoun mountains. This is the deepest cave in Kurdistan that is located at a height of 3050 meters of Piraw mountain in the mountain ranges of Zagros. Piraw mountain is 3357 meters high from sea level which makes it one of the highest mountains in this region, and Piraw cave in 3050-meter height on this mountain is the highest cave in Kurdistan and the world.
This cave is one the largest vertical caves in the world and it is 1450 meters long and 752.5 meters deep. There are 26 wells along this cave and the 16th well is the deepest one which is 42 meters deep. This cave was discovered in 1971. At that time the deepest vertical cave was 1174 meters deep so after discovering Piraw as the world’s deepest cave they called it “The Everest of the world’s caves”. From that time on other deep vertical caves have been discovered and Piraw is classified as the 221st deep cave in the world.
Discovering Piraw cave
In 1971 when some British engineers were studying and measuring the heights of Zagros, they found a wide entrance into a cave and based on their experience and expertise in the geology field, they believed they had found a large and deep cave.
These experts published their studies’ results in a book called “The streams of Zagros” and they have discussed the possibility of the existence of a very large cave in this area. As a result of publishing this book, a group of 11 professional cave climbers from the British Cave Climbing Society under “John Milton” guidance went to Kermashan (Kermanshah) to find this cave in 1971.
These professional cave climbers could reach the 26th cave at the depth of 750 meters after days of working hard. Because they needed more equipment to continue their work, they left the place to come back there the next year. Their names were recorded as the first group who had discovered Piraw cave when they returned to Britain.
A year later another group of cave climbers under “David Judson” guidance and with the support of the Royal Geographical Society and the British Cave Climbing Society went to Kermashan (Kermanshah). Although this group wanted to break the first group’s record and reach deeper parts of this cave, they were unsuccessful. They only finished the first group’s studies and reached the 26th cave.
As a result of the British studies on this cave, a year later the “Piraw Cave Organization” was founded to collect all those people around the world who were interested in discovering unknown caves. This organization has kept on its activities for more than half a century.
In 1975 a group of Polish cave climbers visited Kermashan (Kermanshah) but they also could not break the first British group’s record and they only were able to climb one meter deeper than them which was just a symbolic and commercial action.
Sixteen years later in 1991, a group of mountain and cave climbers from Kermashan (Kermanshah) including Heshmat Haidarian, Bahman Moshtkoub, and Manouchehr Dehshat who were members of Kermashan Mountain Climbing Society climbed down the cave. They were the first Kurdish group who could reach the bottom of the cave.
Piraw cave is one of the subtlest caves in the world and the hard and dangerous level of climbing is D5 which is the highest level of being hard and dangerous to climb down in cave climbing. Those who wish to reach the bottom of this cave have to climb down 26 large wells and 252 small wells. Five Iranian cave climbers have died in this cave. This is why this cave is also known as the “Killer Cave”. Some of these corpses have never been taken out of the cave.
