SEDLEC OSSUARY HISTORY

The history of Sedlec Ossuary in the small town of Kutna Hora, Czech Republic, is quite unusual, as you may have expected.

It all started when Henry, the Cistercian abbot, was sent to the Holy Land in Palestina. He brought back a jar of earth from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified at Golgotha.

When he arrived back, he put the earth over the cemetery. The rumor about his act soon spread everywhere, and thus, Sedlec became a desired place to be buried. Some people even brought their dead relatives to be buried in the Holy Soil of Sedlec.

Soon, in Europe, the plague caused the death of many people, and many people went to Sedlec before their end.

In a short time, many people were buried in Sedlec Ossuary, and thus came the idea of creating an ossuary. Building the ossuary was given to a half-blind monk who arranged the bones. But more than 300 years later, the bones were arranged artistically as they are today.

In 1870, a local woodcarver, Frantisek Rindt, was tasked with decorating the chapel with the bones. And the fantastic result speaks for itself. 40.000 human bodies are now arranged, and the place is now popularly known as the Church of Bones.

In 1970, 100 years after Rindt decorated the ossuary, a Czech filmmaker, Jan Svankmayer, made a 10-minute documentary about it. Unfortunately, there is no English version, only Czech.