We took a day trip today to visit the Sedlec Ossuary, known more commonly as the Bone Chapel in Kutna Hora, which is a town about an hour’s drive east of Prague. Apparently, in ancient times, Kutna Hora rivaled Prague as the commercial and cultural capital of Bohemia (the former term for the Czech Republic), mostly due to the extensive silver mines found in the area. As the silver mines played out, though, Kutna Hora slowly slipped off the map, so to speak, and Prague continued to thrive.
The chapel itself is quite a sight, I must say. It’s not necessarily huge - certainly not in comparison to some of the others in the area - and it has quite a lovely graveyard around it’s perimeter. The inside is filled with the bones of 40,000 to 70,000 people, many of whom were victims of the black plague in the middle ages. Apparently, at one point in history, the graves had to be dug up when a church was built on the grounds of the existing cemetary and the bones were just piled up. Legend has it the job of stacking the bones inside the ossuary was given to a half blind monk. the chandelier you see in the picture is made of every bone in the human body! If you're interested in reading more about the Sedlec Ossuary, click here.
The chapel itself is quite a sight, I must say. It’s not necessarily huge - certainly not in comparison to some of the others in the area - and it has quite a lovely graveyard around it’s perimeter. The inside is filled with the bones of 40,000 to 70,000 people, many of whom were victims of the black plague in the middle ages. Apparently, at one point in history, the graves had to be dug up when a church was built on the grounds of the existing cemetary and the bones were just piled up. Legend has it the job of stacking the bones inside the ossuary was given to a half blind monk. the chandelier you see in the picture is made of every bone in the human body! If you're interested in reading more about the Sedlec Ossuary, click here.
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