Light From The Bones
Bones in the ossuary beneath a church in the small town of Sedlec (Kostnice) just outside Kutná Hora, 70km to the east of Prague. This chandelier was formed from every bone in the human body.
A small church on the outskirts of Prague, Czech. Republic furnished entirely from human remains. by: Fallen99
Bone Church History
40,000 dead form morbidly fascinating sculptures and artwork; skeletons meticulously fashioned in 1870 by a wood carver. This is Sedlec’s Church; All Saints ossuary in the Czech Republic.
Sedlec is a suburb to Kutna Hora, a town in south Bohemia that once flourished due to its mined silver reserve. It is about an hour’s travel from Prague (click here for details on getting there).
So why were so many corpses buried here, and who was responsible for the works of art? In 1278 the Cistercian abbot of Sedlec, Henry, traveled to Palestine and the ‘Holy Land’, bringing home a sample of earth from Golgotha which was later, upon his return, sprinkled over the grounds of his local cemetery. The grounds were immediately considered scared, and hence became a much sought after location for relatives to bury their dead. In the 14th century, the Black Death spread the bubonic plague across Europe and now 30,000 bodies all wanted a resting place within the sacred grounds.
Such vast numbers of dead led to the creation of the ossuary in 1511 by a half-blind monk who gathered up the bones to be stacked up within the ossuary, making space for new corpses, which were soon taken up by more victims from 15th century Hussite Wars. The ossuary itself is situated in the basement of the All Saint’s Chapel.
Frantisek Rint, wood carver and artist was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to imaginatively compose the bones into works of art; amongst his creations came the Schwarzenberg family’s coat of arms, and a chandelier containing every bone in the human body (although I couldn’t say whether this includes the smallest bones found in the human ear!), composed of several bodies. In the four corners of the ossuary sit four ‘bells’, pile upon pile of bones carefully stacked with a hollowed centre.
40,000 dead form morbidly fascinating sculptures and artwork; skeletons meticulously fashioned in 1870 by a wood carver. This is Sedlec’s Church; All Saints ossuary in the Czech Republic.
Sedlec is a suburb to Kutna Hora, a town in south Bohemia that once flourished due to its mined silver reserve. It is about an hour’s travel from Prague (click here for details on getting there).
So why were so many corpses buried here, and who was responsible for the works of art? In 1278 the Cistercian abbot of Sedlec, Henry, traveled to Palestine and the ‘Holy Land’, bringing home a sample of earth from Golgotha which was later, upon his return, sprinkled over the grounds of his local cemetery. The grounds were immediately considered scared, and hence became a much sought after location for relatives to bury their dead. In the 14th century, the Black Death spread the bubonic plague across Europe and now 30,000 bodies all wanted a resting place within the sacred grounds.
Such vast numbers of dead led to the creation of the ossuary in 1511 by a half-blind monk who gathered up the bones to be stacked up within the ossuary, making space for new corpses, which were soon taken up by more victims from 15th century Hussite Wars. The ossuary itself is situated in the basement of the All Saint’s Chapel.
Frantisek Rint, wood carver and artist was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to imaginatively compose the bones into works of art; amongst his creations came the Schwarzenberg family’s coat of arms, and a chandelier containing every bone in the human body (although I couldn’t say whether this includes the smallest bones found in the human ear!), composed of several bodies. In the four corners of the ossuary sit four ‘bells’, pile upon pile of bones carefully stacked with a hollowed centre.
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