It was a graveyard smash!

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Kutna Hora
Julie J Vanover The morning that I had planned on going to the Castle in Prague I went to Kutna Hora instead because of President Bush's visit. Kutna Hora is a town about an hour outside of Prague that is known for the Kostnice Sedlec Ossuary inside of the All Saints Church. I got into Kutna Hora and had to take another train to get into the town, we stopped at this stop that said Sedlec, so I asked the conductor if this was the Ossuary. He nodded yes, but it appeared that we were in the middle of nowhere. I suspected that this was a funny joke to play on the tourists, but a few other tourists had gotten off as well, so I got off. And I am glad I did because the Ossuary was just a few blocks away.

So a little history about the Ossuary, the graveyard became an extremely popular place to be buried because in the 13th century a man went to the Holy Land and he brought back some soil which we spread on the cemetary. This made the cemetary a very desirable place to be buried for centuries. People from the entire region wanted to be buried there as they felt that the holy soil made this a better resting place. This combined with a few plague and wars this lead to too many bodies and not enough ground to bury them all. So they started to dig up graves to make room for new ones. They stacked the bones up outside the church, so in the 16th Century a half blind monk started the task of creating the bones into an artwork. The bones were rearranged several different times for various reasons and the artwork that is seen today is from 1870. There are over 40,000 people represented in the artwork in the ossuary.

This was my first ossuary and it was impressive, the whole area was suprisingly very small. It was a little shocking to learn how many people were represented by the bones in such a small place. I walked around and took pictures of everything! It was a difficult lighting to take pictures so I took even more. A tour group would come in and the place would fill up for 10 minutes, then they would leave and the place would be almost deserted. It was much cooler when it was deserted. There was an alter that had a cross, but the dirt and paint around it was crumbling and peeling which gave it an eerie feeling as well. This really is a place that must be seen, not discussed, so look at the pictures.

After the Ossuary I headed to St. Barbara's Church which was huge and lovely. From here I headed back to Prague and talked to a Chemistry Graduate Student from Illinois on the way back. Although I was unhappy that the castle was closed I was extremely happy that I was able to see the Ossuary. Very, very cool!

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Photos

As if this little angel weren't weird enough...
they had to put a skull in it's lap!

The main hall
From here you can see the four candelabra's and the chandelier.

Chandelier
This is from the bottom of the chandelier. The chandelier uses every bone in the human body, I looked at it for a long time and I could not imagine it. Think of all the really small bones!

Coat of Arms?
I wasn't really sure what this was a shield of, but it's cool.

Cool Weird Artwork
This was right next to the Alter.

Autograph
If I remember correctly this was the artist's 'signature'.

Crown of bones
Over each pile of bones is a crown like this one. I was a little confused about it and what exactly it signified.

All Saints Church
In the lower level of this church is where the Ossuary is. If you look on the top of the spire is a skull and bones instead of a cross.

Kunta Hora
Very pretty little town!

Church of St. Barbara
Isn't this a beautiful church! Massive as well.

Stained Glass from St. Barbara's
Thought that this whole post needed a little color!

Comments

[anonymous]

Great pictures,

[Mom & Dad]

OOOOH! That looks a little creepy. I would not have believed it if you didn't have pictures.