The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church
of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic.
The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose
bones have in many cases been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings
for the chapel.
The ossuary is among the most visited tourist attractions of the Czech Republic, attracting
over 200,000 visitors yearly.
Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel.
An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body,
hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault.
Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large Schwarzenberg
coat of arms, and the signature of Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance.
History
In 1278, Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to the Holy
Land by King Otakar II of Bohemia.
He returned with him a small amount of earth he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled
it over the abbey cemetery.
The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable
burial site throughout Central Europe.
In the mid 14th century, during the Black Death, and after the Hussite Wars in the early
15th century, many thousands were buried in the abbey cemetery, so it had to be greatly
enlarged.
Around 1400, a Gothic church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted
upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed
during construction, or simply slated for demolition to make room for new burials.
After 1511, the task of exhuming skeletons and stacking their bones in the chapel was
given to a half-blind monk of the order.
Between 1703 and 1710, a new entrance was constructed to support the front wall, which
was leaning outward, and the upper chapel was rebuilt.
This work, in the Czech Baroque style, was designed by Jan Santini Aichel.
In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put
the bone heaps into order, yielding a macabre result.
In media In 1970, the centenary of Rint's contributions,
Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer was commissioned to document the ossuary.
The result was a 10 minute long frantic-cut film of skeletal images overdubbed with an
actual tour-guide's neutral voice narration.
This version was initially banned by the Czech Communist authorities for alleged subversion,
and the soundtrack was replaced by a brief spoken introduction and a jazz arrangement
by Zdeněk Liška of the poem "Comment dessiner le portrait d'un oiseau" by Jacques Prévert.
Since the Velvet Revolution, the original tour guide soundtrack has been made available.
In the documentary Long Way Round, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman stop to see this church.
Dan Cruickshank also views the church in his Adventures in Architecture.
The ossuary is a major plot device in the John Connolly novel The Black Angel.
The ossuary is used as a location for the Dungeons & Dragons movie and the movie Blood
& Chocolate.
The ossuary was also featured in Ripley's Believe it or Not and is described by Cara
Seymour in the final scene of the film Adaptation.
The ossuary was also the influence for Dr. Satan's lair in the Rob Zombie film House
of 1000 Corpses.
The ossuary was also the influence for Make Believe's album entitled Going to the Bone
Church.
The Sedlec Ossuary
See also Capela dos Ossos
Capuchin Crypt Skull Chapel in Czermna
Skull Tower References
^ NIPOS: Statistika kultury 2009 - I. díl - kulturní dědictví
^ "My Czech Republic".
My Czech Republic.
Retrieved 20 July 2012.
^ Jan Strusiewicz, Cezary.
"The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth".
Cracked.com.
Retrieved 12 July 2012.
External links Official website