Czech Republic. Kuntá Hora’s Peculiar Church of Bones
A church decorated with human bones. Sound creepy? Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel beneath the Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of the Czech Republic city of Kuntá Hora. Inside, the skeletal remains of more than 40,000 people have been artistically arranged to create religious symbols and other decorations.
The ossuary’s story dates back to 1278 when an abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec was sent to the Holy Lands. After returning, the monk spread earth from Golgotha (the place of Jesus’ crucifixion) on the grounds of the town’s main cemetery. As word spread of this holy act, the cemetery at Sedlec became the most popular burial site in Central Europe. World events also contributed to the cemetery’s expansion. More than 30,000 victims of the Black Death (aka the Plague) were buried there between 1346 and 1353. In the early 15th century, a Catholic Church was constructed in the center of the cemetery. To make room for new church buildings, skeletons were exhumed, and their bones stacked with others in the ossuary. Despite limited space, an additional 10,000 bodies were buried at the cemetery during the Hussite Wars (1419 to 1434).
In the Spring of 1421, Hussite (pro-Protestant Christian) troops captured Kuntá Hora, plundered the church, and destroyed much of the cemetery. Beginning in the late 15th century, bones from damaged graves were moved into the ossuary. The first decorative arrangements of bones were created by a half-blind monk during the 17th century. This work continued in the early 18th century when a Czech architect named Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel began using bones to create elaborate Baroque designs. Other designs were contributed by a woodcarver named František Rint who spelled out his name and the year “1870” using small bones. Since 1995, the ossuary and other historic structures in Kuntá Hora have been listed as a World Heritage Site. More than 200,000 visitors tour the ossuary every year.
We arrived at Sedlec Ossuary on a bus from Prague. Although resembling a church, the ossuary is without pews or stained glass windows. Upon entering you are surrounded by human remains with femurs, tibias, and small bones lining the walls. Bones hang from the ceiling or appear in neatly arranged lines on shelves. In one place human skulls form a massive pyramid. I decided that this place was both beautiful and unnerving. In a room adorned with unusual decorations, the most morbid was a chandelier covered with at least one of every bone found in the human body. On a nearby wall, was a coat of arms created from a range of bone sizes including tiny finger bones.
At the time I visited, photography was still allowed in the chapel. Hoping to capture a picture of a skull and bone-covered wall, I slid my camera behind a wire metal fence. Suddenly, an alarm sounded that caused me to yank the camera back. Embarrassed, I attempted to look unfazed as I tucked the camera into a pocket.
In hindsight, Sedlec Ossuary reminds me of the “Mummy Museum” in Guanajuato, Mexico where dried human corpses are lined up along walls or inside glass enclosures. Is it morally acceptable to create a tourist attraction focused on human remains? Some would argue that it’s no different from exhibits featuring prehistoric graves or the mummified bodies of Egyptian pharos.
