Ariqa Cave: A Lava Tube in al-Lajat

Ariqa Cave is a volcanic cave in the very centre of Ariqa village, in the south-central part of the al-Lajat basalt field. You enter it from the bottom of a pit about 10 metres deep. It is a lava tube: the outer skin of a lava flow cooled and hardened while the molten rock inside kept moving, leaving a corridor behind. Researchers date it to around 450,000 years ago. Inside, the temperature stays at 17 degrees all year.

Where it is and how you get in

Ariqa is about 24 kilometres north of As-Suwayda. The mouth of the cave is in the pit at the centre of the village: you go down to the bottom of the pit first, and the entrance is there. The cave has lighting.

What is inside

Arabic sources describe three sections, each between 440 and 450 metres long, linked by natural passages and rock formations; the longest line reaches 1460 metres. Water seeps between the rocks. English sources give a length of 2 to 3 kilometres and call it the largest known cave in southern Syria. The exact measurement varies from source to source.

How long it takes

About an hour, enough to climb down into the pit and walk the three sections.

What else is in the village

On a hill in Ariqa stands a shrine to Ammar ibn Yasir, one of the Prophet’s companions. The village also has houses from the Byzantine period and the remains of a monastery known as Deir Ariqa.

What not to miss

The water seeping out of the rock. Above you lies dry basalt country; down here, water filters through the stone.

Where it stands now

In July 2025 Ariqa was one of the centres of the clashes between Druze and Bedouin groups in Suwayda. Whether the cave is open today, whether the lighting works, and whether the village can be reached cannot be confirmed. This page tells you what the cave is; it does not tell you that you can go there today.