Sedlec Ossuary, Bone Church
by Tyler Branham
Current Listening: Above & Beyond- Walter White
Current Watching: Ali G Show episodes on Youtube
Sedlec Ossunary, or the Bone Church in Kutna Hora was among the most interesting things I've seen to date. According to urban myths, a monk went mad and started collecting bones and creating things out of them. That's how the idea started. This direct association with the holy land led to the graveyard becoming a sought after burial site among the aristocracy of Central Europe. At the time of the thirty years’ war in the 17th century, the number of burials outgrew the space available, the older remains began to be exhumed and stored in the chapel, and it’s estimated that the chapel now contains the bones of up to 40,000 people. The decorations and sculptures were created by a woodcarver named FrantiĊĦek Rint. In 1870, he was commissioned by the landowners of the time to decorate the chapel with the bones and create a reminder of the impermanence of human life and inescapable death. Within the chapel there are noughts, crosses, chalices, a coat of arms, and candelabras all made from human bone. Quite erie.
