The Bone Church

On our way out of Prague on Monday afternoon, we decided to head to Kutna Hora to visit The Bone Church. Back in the 14th century when the plague spread through Europe, millions of people were dying but that just wasn't enough ground space to bury them all. In 1511, a partially blind monk dug up and collected the bones of over 30,000 deceased people and stacked them in Kostnice (church of bones) Ossuary to make room for more corpses in the ground. He gradually collected more and more bones over the years from both the plague and this Hussite wars. A wood carver and artist was later hired to turn these bones into works of art. The church, as you can imagine, was very creepy and smelt extremely musty. I could only handle the smell for a couple of minutes before I was out of there. I don't think the place had seen a broom or a mop in over 500 years.

Looks pretty normal from the outside

Cemetery outside the church

The Schwarzenberg family coat of arms made out of bones

Upclose picture of the coat of arms

The artist built these odd hut looking things that were made only of stacked bones. There were no ropes or nails holding these bones together.

As always, feel free to click on the picture to enlarge it.