The Sedlec Ossuary at Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic is an amazing example of a burial ritual, post burial, that I cannot believe I have neglected to talk about until now. To give you some history, it's a small Christian chapel located under the Church of All Saints in Sedlec, an area in the small Czech town of Kutna Hora. The story goes that the abbott of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, Henry, was sent by King Otakar II of Bohemia on a diplomatic mission to the Holy Land in 1278. When he left, he took with him a handful of earth from Golgotha, where Christ was crucified. When he brought that soil back to Sedlec, he sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery which turned it into a desired burial sight almost overnight. As a result of the Black Death mid 14th century and the Hussite wars in early 15th century thousands of bodies were buried in the cemetery and it had to be enlarged to accommodate the vast number of people. In 1400 a gothic church called the Church of All Saints was built in the centre of the cemetery and had a lower chapel which was to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves that were unearthed during its construction. According to legends, in 1511 the task of exhuming skeletons and arranging their bones in the chapel was given to a half-blind monk from the order. Over the next few years (1703-1710) a new entrance to the church was built, as well as rebuilding the upper chapel. 1870 was the date that the Sedlec Ossuary really took shape, as a woodcarver named Frantisek Rink was hired by the Schwarzenberg family to organize the heaps of bones located in the ossuary. Here are his results.
Pictured: Stairs leading down into Sedlec Ossuary
Credit: All photos taken by Baylie Corner
Credit: All photos taken by Baylie Corner
What I find so amazing about this macabre display of human remains is the beauty and detail put into arranging them. There are garlands, a a coat of arms, piles of organized bones, and a chandelier that contains every bone in the human body. Although I find it quite beautiful, the one thing I can't shake from my head after taking this course is ethics. During the construction of the new church all of the bones we see beautifully arranged were once exhumed and placed in heaps until church workers knew what to do with them. So how must have the surviving family members (if there were any) felt about their ancestors being dug up, mixed up, and placed into piles to make room for a new church? I can't help but wonder if there was any community protest when work began building the new church, and the exhuming of the bodies began. In total the Ossuary contains the remains of over 40,000 people....and that's a lot of people to be exhuming and arranging for the construction of a new church. I have a few theories as to why it was considered ok to dig up the bones of 40,000 people to make way for the new church. First, it is possible that people were upset with the decision to exhume the entire cemetery and move it to the ossuary, but the benefit of having a new church outweighed the cons of moving 40,000 skeletons underground. Second, it's possible that because the skeletons were primarily from the time of the Black Death and the Hussite wars they either had no surviving family, or remained nameless which made it less ethically wrong to construction workers to exhume the bodies and move them somewhere to be displayed. Third, the people of Kutna Hora may have seen nothing wrong with exhuming the bodies because they were just being moved to make room for a new church, and were moved to another place still within the holy boundary of the church. Overall, it seems that the Sedlec Ossuary is still a respectful cemetery, and a beautiful place to pay respect to those who lost their lives to tragic deaths.
Pictured: Bone chandelier containing all the bones in the human bodyPictured: Bone piles
Pictured: My short self in comparison to the massive vaulted ceilingPictured: One of the many caged off piles of bones
Pictured: Coat of arms and skull garlandWhen I visited the cemetery I thought it was one of the most serene and beautiful places I had been in all of Europe. While yes, I do already love skeletons which may influence my opinion on this wonderful place, but the careful way that the bones are all placed and beautifully crafted into something that can be appreciated and be respected shows that the exhuming of these bodies wasn't malicious, they were cared for and lovingly arranged so the memory of their owners can still be respected. I also heard a rumor while I was there that every few months they have to re-arrange the bones in the bell shaped piles to ensure that they don't weigh down on one spot for too long. Now THAT is dedication to a memorial that may seem macabre to some, but it is easily one of my favourite places in the world.
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