Unicorn Cave

[3] In 1686, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz visited the cave and wrote a report about it mentioning the local trade with unicorn artefacts.

In the 17th century, Otto von Guericke, the mayor of Magdeburg, wrote a newspaper article about the finding of some ancient animal bones in the Zeunickenberg, a Harz mountain near Quedlinburg.

Based on Guericke’s writings, Leibniz drew a fictional reconstruction of the unicorn's skeleton using the bones that had been found in the cave and published the drawing in his book Protogaea.

In 1872, Rudolf Virchow carried out an excavation there and determined that the unknown bones actually stem from extinct animals like mammoths and cave bears.

In 2021, the Giant deer bone of Einhornhöhle was found in the cave, the oldest piece of European art ever discovered, and attributed to Neanderthals.