Do you like horror movies? Want to get a powerful adrenaline rush so that goosebumps run through your skin and your hair stands on end? Then you just need to visit the churchyard in Siedlec. The photo of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the chapel alone is impressive. After all, this lamp is made entirely of human remains. Finger from the phalanx of the fingers looks particularly gothic. In this article we will talk about the unusual sights of the Czech Republic. Organized excursions from Prague go to Kutnu Hora (in its vicinity there is a terrible chapel). But you can see the attraction yourself without contacting travel agencies. How? Read the information below.
Sedlec Ossuary: how to get there
There are several options for the independent traveler. In Prague there is a bus station Florenc. Several times a day, cars leave from him to the city of Kutna Hory. There, right at the bus station, you should transfer to a minibus to Siedlec. It’s not long to go. After all, Kutná Hory is separated from the Czech capital by some sixty kilometers. And Sedlec is a suburb at all. Minibus gets there in ten minutes. The second option is a train. The trains to Kutny Hory leave from the main station of Prague. The second option is preferable for those who want to explore this ancient town along the way. The Kutny Mountains were once famous for their own mint and silver mines. A motorist needs to leave Prague on the E67 road. Then follow the sign for Colin. It is recommended that you stop in this city to explore the wonderful cathedral. Then follow highway 38. At the end of the path, you will find the skeleton in Siedlec. The address of this attraction is: Zámecká, 284 03 Kutná Hora.
What are ossuaries
According to the church-wide Christian tradition, the land of the cemetery is considered sacred. According to beliefs, when the Jericho trumpet sounds , announcing the End of the World and the Last Judgment, the dead will rise from the graves. They will constitute a Christian community. Therefore, earlier cemeteries were arranged near churches. The situation was changed by the Great Plague and a series of subsequent fatal epidemics. The number of dead people has increased significantly. And there was a catastrophic lack of places in the cemetery. The church canon did not give the right to burn the remains of exemplary Christians who died in union with the Church. Burials on top of old graves led animals and rains to expose corpses - and this caused new epidemics. Thus, people came up with the idea of ossuaries. The name comes from the Latin word ossis - "bone". Skeletons were torn from graves and stored in special chapels. And their place was occupied by new dead. Thus, the Sedlec bone storage facility is not unique. Ossuaries exist in many countries, and the largest - six million skeletons - is stored in the catacombs of Paris.
What is unique about the Siedletsk churchyard
Nevertheless, Paris is known as the location of Notre Dame, the Louvre and other attractions. Only a few people know that several million remains lie in the dungeons of the city (more than the living Parisians). But Kutny Hory, in addition to the glorious history of silver mines, has a rather eerie “visiting card” - a church depository in Siedlec. Why is the chapel so interesting? The number of skeletons? Not at all. There are a total of about fifty thousand of them. The Siedlice ossuary would have remained an unknown ossuary if not for the master Frantisek Rint. It is on its wonderful carving that tourists come from all over the Czech Republic and even from abroad.
Cemetery history
First of all, tourists are concerned about the question of where so many skeletons came from in the little Siedlec. Maybe they were exported from abroad? It is not far from the truth. The fact is that in the Christian tradition there is a belief that it is very good for a soul to be buried in a holy place - at a monastery or church. In the thirteenth century, the Sisterlec was home to the Cistercians. King of the Czech Republic Otokar II sent in 1278 the abbot of the monastery of Henry to the Holy Land. The abbot returned home with a handful of earth, which he scooped up at Calvary - the mountain where Jesus Christ was crucified. He dispelled this soil over the monastery cemetery. This strategic move greatly increased the profits of the monastery. From now on, all the rich people of both the Czech Republic and neighboring powers wanted to be buried at the monastery. The deceased all arrived, helped by epidemics and religious wars. And already in the fifteenth century, the monks faced the need to build a church storehouse in Siedlec.
Convert to ossuary
Together, the monks built a small chapel. Old skeletons began to be piled into it, so that they could put “fresh” dead into the freed graves. The skeleton vault in Siedlec (Czech Republic) also became known because a half-blind monk, whose name was lost in history, driven by a passion for order, began to bleach bones with chlorine and put them in neat pyramids. And when this monk died, six piles several meters high stood in the corners of the chapel. None of the brethren had a desire to continue the work of a monk. The chapel was closed, and so it stood until the end of the eighteenth century.
Turning into a Unique Landmark
The Age of Enlightenment, which affected the Czech Republic, led to the secularization of European states and a decrease in the number of monasteries. In 1784, the monastery was dissolved by order of the emperor, and the monastery lands together with the ossuary were bought by the noble family of the Schwarzenbergs. For a long time, the new owners did not know what to do with the chapel. Finally, in 1870, a representative of the clan came up with an original idea. He hired woodcarver Frantisek Rint. The master’s task was to arrange the bones in the ossuary. A true genius manifests itself in everything. And the improvised “material” did not at all embarrass the woodcarver. Once again he bleached the skeletons with bleach and set to work. The result of his work can now be admired in the churchhouse in Siedlec.
The main attractions of the chapel
The order "to create something gothic" master Rint understood in his own way. For work, he chose forty thousand human skeletons. He disassembled them to the bone and began to decorate the chapel. As a result, the ossuary has not just turned into a terrible repository of human remains. This is a real work of art. Everything in the chapel is made of bones - small details of decor, a vase, a donor-bearer on both sides of the altar and even the coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family. Enormous admiration and at the same time awe causes visitors to the chandelier. The master showed in it, so to speak, aerobatics. The lamp uses all the bones in the human body. And to top it off, the master left an autograph on the wall. Guess what it's made of?
Ossuary in Siedlec: reviews
Not many dare to enter the chapel. But those who overcame fear assure: the sense of horror fades into the background, you just have to look at the works of art that fill the interior of the ossuary. After all, we contemplate with aesthetic pleasure crafts from ivory. And goose bumps from this do not go. And in this case, we see in front of us the bones of long-dead people. In addition, not intact, in the form of a skeleton, but disassembled into fragments. If you abandon the origin of the material, it comes out very beautifully. But then soul-saving thoughts about the transience of being come to mind. In short, tourists are advised to spend sixty kroner to see this miracle.