Has Anyone Seen The Babacai Rock Crack?

The Babacai Rock in 1963, photographed from the northeast (Fortepan / Drobni Nándor)

MAGYARUL

româneşte

The Babacai rock is one of the most prominent places on the Danube. I would deliberately not write island, as it could not be more different from the general concept of islands in the Danube. But then what is it? A reef? A cliff? In the end, it doesn't matter, the point is that, due to its characteristic position in the Danube, there is a particularly well-documented visual representation of it, even from before the time of photography. If you start to browse through the images of the rock from the past to the present, you will notice something interesting. It is as if today it appears both lower and thinner. The obvious explanation for the former is the dammed reservoir effect of Iron Gate I hydroelectric power plant. The raised level of the Danube covered the lower parts of the cliff, a rocky reef that gradually descended towards the south, but what happened to the main mass of the cliff, which used to have two distinct peaks, only one of which is visible today? 

The Babacai rock seen from the Romanian (eastern) side of the Danube.

Mostly harmless - the h̶i̶t̶c̶h̶i̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ sailors of the Lower Danube might say of the Babakai rock, since it is like a raised index finger, towering above the water, signalling the danger lurking ahead (44. 672954, 21.677079). There are, or were, much more treacherous reefs on the Iron Gates, hiding just below the water's surface, but these have been eradicated, along with many others, by regional, somewhat drastic river regulation. The Babakai rock, with its ruined Coronini Castle and the slightly better preserved Golubac, are the trio that guard the section of the Iron Gates gorge where mountains now rise on both banks, right next to the river. These points along the Babakai help to identify its exact position, as the cliff stands in the river and can be navigated around, so typically pictures of it are taken from very different directions. In some photographs it may even appear to be reflected, adding to the spatial uncertainty.

The Babacai rock's single peak photographed from eastern direction.

The limestone mass of the lonely Babakai rock has been transformed into carbonate rock from sediments accumulating in Jurassic seas. Its size may originally have been much larger, but since it was surrounded by the Danube for a long time, it has been constantly eroded by the wind, water, ice and precipitation, and its limestone surface has been eroded and weathered. Most literature on the rock mentions that in Roman and Turkish times it may have been a watchtower, but this is highly unlikely, as the soldiers stationed here would have had to constantly transport supplies, as there is no clean water, and the size of the rock would have made it more of a prison. Its current footprint is the equivalent of a circle about 15 metres in diameter, depending on the water level, which fluctuated a lot more before the construction of the dam. At low water, a flat rocky outcrop emerged to the south of the main mass of the cliff, i.e. downstream, where it was possible to land from a boat and, according to contemporary pictures, trees and bushes could settle, although they probably had to live in very harsh conditions. 

The fresh surface of the crack photographed from the north.

From the west, it is worth climbing Babacai, this side is the least steep, although it also has a slope of at least 60 degrees, while the northern and eastern sides of the cliff rise almost vertically from the Danube. However, these two stone walls are easily distinguishable to the naked eye. The eastern face is weathered, mottled, with several areas of vegetation, mosses and lichens, while the northern face is almost smooth, with geologically intact rock, clearly a fresh fracture surface, not yet ready to be eaten away by the iron teeth of external forces. The geological condition of the rock clearly shows that it has been rock-cut, as confirmed by the photographs available to us. The double peaks of the Babakai rock, which can be seen in postcards and photographs, was clearly still there at the turn of the 20th century. Despite the fact that it is a fairly well documented century, and despite the attention paid to the area due to the construction of the power station, it is not clear when and why the northern rock pillar disappeared.

The double summit of the Babacai rock, seen from the south. Kajtor I./MTI (source)

What is certain is that Kajtor I. was able to photograph the two peaks of Babakai in August 1969 and the picture could appear in the Hydrological Bulletin, so it seems that the unstable rock had already collapsed into the newly created reservoir. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out the exact date. In any case, the first photo of this post, taken in 1963, shows a wide crack between the two peaks, running down to the base of the cliff. It is possible that the second peak collapsed during work on the power station, or that it was cracked by rising water levels or ice, or that careless tourists ventured too far, or that someone wanted to carve a portrait of a Dacian prince. Someone must have noticed... if there were navigation signs on one of the peaks. In any case, there is hope that Romanian-language newspaper articles documented the rockfall and that someone, somewhere, will stumble across this perhaps not-so-important piece of information. 

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)