Caves of the Mendip Hills Caves of the Mendip Hills The caves of the Mendip Hills are formed by the particular geology of the Mendip Hills: large areas of limestone worn away by water makes it a national centre for caving. The hills conceal the largest underground river system in Britain. The hills consist of anticlines of Carboniferous Limestone lying over Devonian Old Red Sandstone, with the sandstone exposed on the summits. When a surface stream running off the sandstone reaches the limestone it sinks below ground through a "swallet", (also known locally as a "slocker"), continuing on its way down towards sea level by
Buddhist caves in India would revive briefly in the 6th century CE, with the magnificent achievements of Ajanta and Ellora, before finally subsiding as Hinduism replaced Buddhism in the sub-continent, and stand-alone temples became more prevalent. The Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, a World Heritage Site, are 30 rock-cut cave Buddhist temples carved into the sheer vertical side of a gorge near a waterfall-fed pool located in the hills of the Sahyadri mountains. Like all the locations of Buddhist caves, this one is located near main trade routes and spans six centuries beginning in the 2nd or 1st century B.C. A period of intense building