The 40,000 skeletons within Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic welcome you, quite literally, with open arms. Known to most as “The Bone Church,” it displays some of the world’s more macabre art. In addition to a splendid bone chandelier composed from almost every bone in a human body, the ossuary displays two large bone chalices, four baroque bone candelabras, six enormous bone pyramids, two bone monstrances , a family crest in (you guessed it) bone, and skull candleholders. Festively looping chains of bone are hung throughout like crepe paper at a birthday party.
Sedlec Ossuary has a long history, beginning in the 13th century when the Abbot of the Sedlec Monastery (Abbot Henry) brought a handful of earth back from a journey to the Grave of the Lord in Jerusalem. He scattered this “holy soil” across the Sedlec cemetery, securing its place as one of the most desired burial sites for people all over Bohemia and the surrounding countries. Everyone wanted to be buried in that handful of the Holy Land and more than 30,000 were. But it wasn’t long before there simply wasn’t enough room for everyone to rest in peace, and the bodies were moved to a crypt to make room for the newly dead.
Second is Portugal’s Chapel of Bones, 16th Century Franciscan monks used 42 cemeteries worth of bones to decorate their chapel.
The Chapel of Bones is entered through a large arch bearing the words: Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos: “Our bones that are here wait for yours!”
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