Bone Church: a scary masterpiece / Kostnice: desive veledilo

Kostnice (Bone church) is a small chapel located in the town of Kutna Hora. The name already uncovers the big secret: the church is a home to a lot of human bones. And when I say “a lot”, I mean A LOT: the sanctuary contains close to 70,000 human skeletons, artistically arranged to create decorations and furnishings for the church. There are only 2 questions I had when I saw all these bones in person:

1/ Why so many of them?

In 1278 the Czech king Otakar II sent one of his monks to the Holy Land in Jerusalem to bring back some of the “real” soil. The monk returned safe and sound and with a bag of Jerusalem soil over his back. Once he sprinkled it over the Bone church cemetery it became a hot burial site in the whole Europe and everyone wanted to be laid to rest pretty much there (result –>a lot of bones). The Black Death in the 14th century added about 30,000 people there (–> more bones) Once the Hussite Wars came around (–> even more bones!) and there was no way that the cemetery had space for all those dead soldiers, it had to be greatly enlarged with new grave sites being built mostly around the chapel as well as underground.

2/ Who had the time and the stomach to build with bones? And why???

I couldn’t find much info on that. It is known that this awful job was given to one of the monks in 1511 who also happened to be half blind. The fact that his sight was not good must have helped his miserable job a little but still….what a nightmare!!! Scrub 40,000 human skeletons (there are 206 bones in an adult human body) and then on top to also build benches out of them!! Too bad they didn’t have Starbucks back then, some good espresso would probably help during those busy days (or years)…
I heard of two reasons why this whole ordeal was done:

1/ The bones had to be dug out and compacted (but did they really have to be compacted into chandeliers??) to leave more space for the “newcomers”

2/ By scrubbing them clean, the bones were rid of their sins hence it was believed that will give them an easier ride to heaven.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary

http://www.kostnice.cz/