Sedlec Ossuary - Kutná Hora

Located in the Czech Republic, Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic Chapel located under the Cemetery Church of All Saints. The cemetery was once a popular place for burial, due to a 13th century abbot sprinkling the cemetery grounds with sacred earth brought back from the Holy Land.  With an abundance of disease and war, the cemetery became overpopulated, resulting in a lack of space for new burials.

During the 1400’s, a church was built within the cemetery grounds.. The lower level was used as an ossuary, acting as a mass grave for displaced bones.. The abundant bones were stacked in piles for centuries.  In 1870, a woodcarver, Frantisek Rint, was hired by the Schwarzenberg family to arrange the bones in a more visually pleasing manner. His creative artistry and design are what is visible today in this sacred space.

The chandelier pictured above was created using at least one of every bone in the human body. There are estimated to be about 40,000 to 70,000 people whose bones are located in the ossuary.  Near the entrance, the signature of Frantisek Rint is displayed, written with bones.

These digital images were captured in the summer of 2019. As of January 2020, you are no longer allowed to photograph inside the ossuary.