The Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora - Czech Republic  The story of the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora is th

The Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora - Czech Republic  The story of the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora is that, in the 13th century, the abbot of the Sedlec Monastery returned from a visit to Palestine with a pocketful of “holy soil” and sprinkled it on the cemetery surrounding the Chapel of All Saints.This direct association with the holy land led to the graveyard becoming a sought after burial site among the aristocracy of Central Europe. In the 17th century the number of burials outgrew the space available and the older remains began to be exhumed and stored in the chapel. It is estimated that the chapel is artistically decorated with more than 40.000 human skeletons. The decorations and sculptures were created by a woodcarver named František Rint. In 1870, he was commissioned by the landowners of the time, the Schwarzenberg family, to decorate the chapel with the bones and create a reminder of the impermanence of human life and inescapable death. -- source link

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