Temple of bones in Prague. Ossuary in Kutná Hora Museum of human bones in the Czech Republic

The city is located 80 kilometers from Prague. In its suburb of Sedlec there is one of the most unique churches in the world - the Cemetery Church of All Saints, better known as the Ossuary (Kostnice v Sedlci). The tradition of keeping the bones of the dead in chapels was widespread in the Middle Ages. But in this temple they are not just preserved - the main part of the interior decoration is made from the remains.

The history of an amazing church

The Church of All Saints was built in 1400 in the central part of the cemetery at the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec. But the mystical history of this place began much earlier.
In 1278, Abbot Henry, who served in the monastery, was sent by Otakar II to Jerusalem. From there he brought some earth taken from Golgotha ​​and scattered it around the cemetery. As a result, this place gained incredible popularity not only among Czechs, but also among residents of central Europe. Everyone wanted to find their eternal peace in the Sedlec necropolis with its holy land.

The events of the next hundred plus years - wars, floods and numerous epidemics - led to the fact that the cemetery increased significantly in size. At the beginning of the 15th century, in order to free up space for new burials, long-buried remains were removed and stored in the church tomb.

By 1500, a huge amount of bones had accumulated. It is believed that it was during that period that the first interior items from the remains appeared. According to legend, they were created by a half-blind monk.

Instead of simply throwing the skeletons into the crypt, he bleached them in a chlorine solution and used them as material. As a result, two central and four corner pyramids arose in the tomb, crowned with large crowns. Some time after the end of his labors, the monk died.

At the beginning of the 16th century the church was rebuilt. According to the architect Santini, a new entrance was added to the building and the upper tier was redone in the Baroque style. Then the temple was closed for more than 150 years.

In the center of the cathedral there are four obelisks decorated with skulls. On one of the walls of the room there is a filigree bone coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family, as well as Rint’s autograph, laid out from the remains. According to various sources, it took from 40,000 to 50,000 bones to finish the temple.

The Cemetery Church of All Saints is a temple with an amazing atmosphere. On the one hand, the skill of the master who created the jewelry is impressive. On the other hand, the thought of what material all the interior elements are made of is terrifying. The ossuary is the most suitable place to feel the transience of existence and think about the eternal. The church is open to visitors all year round, except for Christmas.

Opening hours and ticket prices

The ossuary works:

• November - February from 9:00 to 16:00
• April - September from 8:00 to 18:00 (Sunday 9:00-18:00)
• October - March from 9:00 to 17:00

Tickets:

• Standard: 90 CZK
• Reduced/children 60 CZK

Group discounts (8 or more people):

• Standard: 75 CZK
• Students/children/disabled: 50 CZK

Family tickets:

• 2 adults + 1-4 children: 240 CZK
• 2 adults + 5-8 children: 300 CZK

How to get to Kostnice

The easiest and fastest way to get to Kostnice from Prague is by train. The direct flight Prague - Kutná Hora departs from and arrives at the Kutná Hora central station (Kutná Hora město).

Flights operate regularly, every two hours, the first flight departs exactly at 6:00 am, the last at 22:00. Travel time is 56 minutes, ticket price is 106 CZK one way. On the way back the picture is even better, trains run almost every hour, the first at 4:57, the penultimate at 18:59, the last at 20:59.

The schedule and price are always subject to change, please check first!

There is a “Tourist Bus” right next to the station; the bus has 8 seats, the minimum number of passengers for departure is three. The service is popular, fills up quickly, and goes straight to the entrance to the Ossuary. Ticket price is 35 CZK one way.

Videos and photos

We made a short 2-minute video and a number of photos for you. I would like to warn you that it is prohibited to take photographs inside with a flash, an audible alarm immediately goes off, this is exactly what happened to us, we had to apologize.

Restrained, well-trained Prague in style resembles a prim, excellent student. Not a single extra line and every brick in its place. The first week it delights, then it unnerves. So much so that even according to the domestic tradition of hanging billboards advertising chips on historical monuments, you begin to get bored.

But you can find a skeleton in everyone's closet. The Czech Republic decided not to limit itself to the wardrobe and assigned it to this business. It is there, in the Siedlce district, that the main ossuary of the country.

Come - you are always welcome here.

Every year 250,000 people come to see it. Will you dare to test your endurance?

Ossuary. Entrance to the territory.
The inscription is in four languages.

Are you ready to take selfies not in cafes and malls, but in a church made of bones? Then we declare preparations for the trip open!

The mosaic on the path suggests
that you have come to the right address.
Czech humor.

A little history (to nod understandingly to the guide, and not faint), the cost of entry, addresses of souvenir shops... Comparative characteristics of valerian and as an effective sedative and others nuances that are more pleasant to know BEFORE the excursion.

What do thousands of travelers come to see every year?

The ossuary in Kutna Hora is a very uniquely decorated church. To organize its interior decoration, it took 40,000 human skeletons.

At first glance, you won’t suspect anything: a small Church surrounded by a cemetery. Nothing remarkable.

You can even come here with children - but so what?

But once you step inside...

Hello - why did you come?

Bones on the ceiling and along the walls. A chandelier, columns, crosses, vases, coats of arms, cups are made from bones... The author of this gloomy structure even wrote his signature with bones.

The hall with the main exhibition is a semi-basement room.
We go down the stairs...

Chlorine-bleached skulls and shoulder blades, disinfected ribs and vertebrae, humeri and tibias... You can take an anatomy textbook with you and take a mini-inventory: you will find both os coccygis (from Latin - coccyx) and os sacrum (from Latin - sacrum) . You may not even know that each of us has so many bones.

Who thought of building something like this instead of sophisticated palaces? Why did they violate human remains? By the way, whose bones are these?!

Many, very many…

Victoria (37 years old, Vladimir):

“I didn’t want to go there, it’s not my format. But my husband insisted that it was a must see, and my son was also interested. I was frankly afraid that I would faint or something like that. In fact, pictures on the Internet are more frightening. And there, inside, you think about other things. It's not scary there, but very sad and calm. Children, especially the younger ones, don’t seem to feel anything at all: they run, scream, everyone is trying to steal or pick something... I didn’t faint, but I didn’t take pictures, and I don’t want to go back there again, although, I don’t regret that I visited.”

Human life, what are you?
Who is looking into your face?

It’s easy to tell a story, but it’s not easy to build an Ossuary

The history of the Ossuary (or ossuary: from the Latin “os” - bone) was started by the King of the Czech Republic, Otakar II. He sent one of the novices of the local monastery to Palestine. While at Golgotha, the monk took some sacred soil. He brought this earth to the Czech Republic and on a windy day scattered it over the cemetery, which after that also began to be considered sacred land.

Influential families of the Czech Republic and neighboring countries wished to bury their relatives in such a cemetery. The cemetery has become more in demand. But after the difficult year of 1318, when the plague was raging, there was no room left for new burials.

Enterprising Czechs got out gracefully. They removed all the old bones and built a cathedral and crypt for them nearby. And new dead people began to be buried in the cemetery. The trick was performed 6 times.

Now the cemetery looks like this.
Seventh shift...

During this time, 40,000 people found their last refuge in Sedlec. Some monk even built pyramids from all these phalanges, vertebrae and ribs.

But Frantisek Rint brought the church to its current form. He was invited by the Schwarzenbergs when these lands fell to them. Rint conceived and created the interior of the Ossuary. His main masterpiece is a chandelier in which every (!) bone of the human body was used.

The science of bones is osteology.
And this is an osteological chandelier.

In gratitude for the trust shown, Rint formed not only his initials, but also the Schwarzenberg coat of arms from the collarbones, shoulder blades, humerus, radius and ulna.

The Schwarzenbergs were not shy...

If you believe the legend, a visit to the Ossuary can bring a lot of money. To do this, you need to throw a coin in front of the altar. And if sometime in the future the person who performed such a ritual is in poverty, then fate will throw him sudden wealth.

Timofey (32 years old, Moscow):

"Amazing place! Who do you have to be to build something like this?! But it was worth the trip. You need to watch this once. You immediately think about different things that you usually don’t have time to remember. Everything is done beautifully, although creepy. Especially when you imagine that each bone belonged to some person who was like us: he lived, thought about something, dreamed about something... By the way, I didn’t feel any smell. I was more embarrassed by the perky selfies that other tourists took.”

Next to the cemetery there is a children's playground.
Ordinary. Not at all gothic.

How to get to the Ossuary without dying along the way?

The town of Kutná Hora is located 66 km from the Czech capital. The famous ossuary stands on its very outskirts, in the Siedlce district. This area is separated from the center by about 3-3.5 km.

There are two ways to get to bone deposits:

On one's own

An independent trip is suitable for those who:

• doesn’t want to get up early and run to Wenceslas Square by 8:00;
• knows how to drive, is ready to rent a car or get acquainted with Czech public transport alone;
• is friendly with maps, navigators and is not afraid of getting lost on the road;
• doesn’t like to live according to a schedule and always wants to change the route because “Look, what a colorful building, let’s stop and take a photo!”

Price - from 220 CZK (price of train tickets from Prague to Kutna Hora and back).

Getting there from Prague is not difficult: you can rent a car, or you can take a nap for an hour on the bus or train “Prague - Kutná Hora”.

Traveling in a rented car is a normal option.
There are no problems with parking.

A bus ride will cost 68 CZK. We choose a bus.
A train ticket costs 110 CZK. Checking the schedule.

Do you want to plan your trip wisely? Would you go... . There you will find a number of tips: addresses of trusted restaurants, coordinates of interesting locations that you can visit along the way, etc.

With a group excursion

This voyage is an option for those who:

• can't drive;
• does not speak Czech or English;
• wants to take a break from searching for attractions on the Internet;
• wants to be sure that by dinner that day (!) there will be .

Cost: €27 per person. Duration: 8 hours.

Mikhail (21 years old, Volgograd):

“We decided to go to Kostnitsa without fail. When you go inside, there is such a strange feeling... It’s not scary, no. You just remember that no one is eternal. You feel some kind of respect for death, or something... I don’t know how to describe it. But there is something to think about, even when you have already left. As for the bones... Everything is done so carefully and precisely that it is quite possible to abstract from the fact that you are surrounded by human remains.”

Abstract yourself...
and all will be well.

Reconstruction, work schedule, prices and other org. questions

Cost of tickets to the ossuary:

Full (adults) - 90 CZK;
Preferential (for students, disabled people, children) - 60 CZK.

Opening hours:

On other days:

• November - February: 9:00 - 16:00;
• April - September: 8:00 - 18:00 (during this period on Sundays - from 9:00);
• October, March: 9:00 - 17:00.

Now in Kostnice reconstruction is taking place. The church is surrounded by scaffolding: the roof is being repaired and the façade of the building is being refreshed. The renovation will last 5 years. All this time the ossuary in the Czech Republic was and will be open for visitors.

In July 2015, the church looked like this. To the side and behind there is scaffolding. Reconstruction.

Fables periodically appear on the Internet that the ossuary is closed, but this is incorrect information. The city is run by smart people. They are able to imagine how many losses Kutna Hora will suffer if its main asset ceases to function for 5 years. Therefore, management will not take such measures.

Still nervous and afraid to ride in vain? Information can always be checked on the official website, at a travel agency, or based on reviews from recently returned tourists.

Photography is allowed, but without flash.

Both beautiful and scary...
Take photos... reflect later.

Souvenirs

There is a gift shop in the Ossuary itself, near it and near the Cathedral of St. Barbarians.

Gift shop in the ossuary.
The most popular souvenir is a skull.

Here you can buy both standard souvenirs (magnets, T-shirts, etc.) and more specific ones (knight figurines, keychains, magnets, postcards, cups with skulls and crossbones, ceramics, etc.).

Another souvenir is a T-shirt for her and for him on an impromptu display.
350 Kč.

This...that, but can everyone go there?

Particularly impressionable people who faint at the word “poop” have nothing to do there. The rest will not have nightmares or phobias. No one will go there every year, but one visit for general development is quite bearable.

If you are a believer and are worried about how the church treats such places, then you should talk about it with your confessor. He will tell you about the morals of your denomination.

Rita felt somehow uncomfortable here.

In the past, the bones were buried according to all the rules, The church still holds services in memory of the dead. Anyone can light a candle. This is hardly an insult to the deceased.

But less than ten years had passed, Rita came here again - this time with the children.

Now your wallet and psyche are ready for anything. While other tourists ooh, aah and try to stay conscious, you can expertly count all the collarbones and sternums and take a couple of epic photos. And then you look, and you’ll be able to snatch the cutest skulls from the souvenir shop.

Those who have been to the Czech Republic have probably visited the famous Ossuary. I think it is safe to say that at least 90% of visitors were shocked by what they saw. Today I want to talk about churches, temples or crypts similar to Ossuary in other countries.

In ancient times, it was common to use bones in religious traditions to honor the dead. It was for this purpose that crypts appeared in the temples of churches and their dungeons. Later, such caves turned out to be very useful, since during the plague, cemeteries no longer had enough space for burials.

In the photo below you will see tons of bones that line the walls, columns, towers, altars and even chandeliers. The bones belonged to monks, nobles, victims of epidemics and even virgins! However, most often the only surviving part of the skeleton was the skull.

While many may find it odd that a crypt is referred to as a “tourist attraction,” visiting such a site does not necessarily leave you feeling morbidly fascinated. Such an excursion can be shocking or sobering; however, the meaning of life and participation in the highest are beyond the terrible opposition to fate that occurs in us when we look at these bones.

If you have visited any other crypts that are not presented here, do not hesitate to add your photos!

Sedlec Crypt, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

Chapel with skulls, Czermna, Poland

The chapel was built in 1776 by the parish priest Vaclav, who ensured that the bones of 3,000 people were located evenly along the walls. Under the floor of this chapel is the burial place of 21,000 people who died during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), due to cholera and famine.

Monastery of Saint Francis, Lima, Peru

The Monastery of San Francisco in Lima not only boasts a world-famous library and a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List, but also a crypt in the catacombs below the church. The skulls in the crypt are decoratively arranged in concentric circles separated by other bones. It is estimated that 70,000 people are housed in the blind.

Catacombs of L'ossuaire Municipal, Paris, France

Paris always has an answer to everything London does. This also applies to the catacombs. At the same time that they were being actively built in London, underground rooms for the burial of the dead were also being dug in Paris.
More than 6 million human bones decorate the walls of underground crypts. Old burial sites are open to tourists if the purpose of their visits is not vandalism, as was the case in 2009, when local authorities were forced to close access to the catacombs.

As in the London catacombs, there are many different tunnels with and without remains - a whole “underground Paris”.

Church of Santiago Apostol, Lampa, Peru

One of the city's most famous landmarks is the Church of the Apostle of Santiago. It was built from coastal pebbles held together with lime mortar. The time of its construction is the middle of the 17th century. Later, when the church was restored under the direction of a mining engineer, famous and popular in the city, Enrique Torres Belon (1887-1969), a beautiful chapel, richly decorated with marble, was added to the church. A plaster mold of the famous statue La Pieta (“mourning Christ”), created by Michelangelo, was brought specially from the Vatican, according to which a copy of the original statue was cast and the chapel was crowned with it. The mold, which was to be destroyed after casting according to the contract, was not destroyed, but was displayed in the city hall.

Exquisite carvings and amazingly beautiful paintings, painted in the colonial era by masters from the schools of Cusco and Quito, richly decorate the interior.

Torres Belon, ex-president of the Peruvian Congress in 1957, is buried in the chapel. The chapel itself is famous for the fact that it is decorated with human skeletons. Skeletons of hundreds of priests, estate owners and Spanish miners hang on the walls. The bones were transferred here after Torres Belon ordered the catacombs to be filled with cement to strengthen the foundation of the church. Thus, the last vestiges of generations of colonial nobility became the decoration for the tomb of the mining engineer.

Chapel of Bones, Evora, Portugal. The Ossos Chapel of Souls, or chapel of bones, is one of Evora's most famous monuments - and a creepy tourist attraction. The chapel was built by Franciscan monks in the 16th century. This death hall was built next to the Church of St. Francis. The chapel contains the skulls and bones of 5,000 monks, and 2 complete skeletons hang chained to the ceiling. Their identities remain unknown.

Capuchin Church of Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome, Italy

The crypt under the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, is divided into five chapels and contains the remains of 4,000 Capuchin friars. Buried between 1500 and 1870. The soil. Located in the crypt, it was brought from Jerusalem.

Crypt, Hallstatt, Austria

Hallstatt is a small town in Austria, in the federal state of Upper Austria. It is surrounded by a beautiful forest, mountains and a clear lake.

Despite its venerable age, the development of the settlement is hampered by the limited territory between the lake and the rocks. For this reason, there is an acute shortage of land in Hallstatt, including cemetery land. At the local cemetery, since the 16th century, every 10-15 years, the bones of the dead were removed from the ground and bleached in the sun. The skulls of the deceased were put on display in the ossuary, which is located in the chapel of St. Michael.

In 1700, skulls began to be decorated with symbols and marked with the names of the deceased, dates of birth and death. Many skulls have laurels for valor, roses for love, etc. Until 1800, painting was done only with black paint; later a bright, colorful style began to be used.

Cathedral of the Martyrs of Otranto, Otranto, Italy

The Cathedral of Otranto is a treasure of southern Italy.

It was built during the Norman period in the 11th century. and it has two amazing features.

Firstly, the mosaic floor, made in 1163-65. and preserved intact, bringing to us the mosaics of the Basilian monk Pantaleone with the image of the Tree of Life, scenes from the Old Testament and the Gospel, military campaigns and gladiatorial fights. The frescoes are executed not so gracefully, but powerfully and sincerely, they could well be the envy of a modern artist of naive art.

Secondly, the cathedral contains the relics of the Holy Martyrs, who were executed by the Turks after refusing to convert to Islam. The relics are kept in a separate chapel, which is opened during the service.

Crypt, Eggenburg, Austria

The remains of 5,800 people are on display here. The crypt was sharpened at the beginning of the 14th century.

San Bernardino alle Ossa, Milan, Italy. This crypt dates back to 1210, a time when the nearby hospital cemetery was overcrowded. The crypt was built to store bones. The church was annexed to the crypt in 1269, but was burned in 1712. In 1776, a larger church was built on the same site.

Church of Saint Maria de Wamba, Valladolid, Spain

This church, completely unremarkable from the outside, is located near the town of Kutna Hora, approximately 70 kilometers from the capital of the Czech Republic.

From the inside, the hall is an amazing and at the same time shocking architectural monument in which all the main design elements are made of human bones. At the sight of this entire masterpiece, dual feelings begin to fill the soul. Aweful horror and vivid delight merge in a single dance of the most intimate emotions.

In 1218, a plague epidemic swept across Europe. When cemeteries could no longer accommodate such a huge number of dead, secondary burials began. The old bones were put into chapel-ossuaries, and the dead were buried again in their original places.

The cemetery was resold several times, and as a result, the remains of more than 40,000 people were collected on the site of the Sedlec Monastery ossuary. In 1511, a half-blind monk, having bleached all the bones, began to stack them into six pyramids. Each pyramid was 2-3 meters high.

When the monk died, the pyramids were not destroyed, but the church of bones was closed for 350 years and tens of thousands of skulls, phalanges, ribs and hip joints were left waiting in the wings.

In the 18th century, Prince Schwarzenberg, who then owned the monastery land, ordered the creation of what people later called the “church of bones.” This unusual case was entrusted to the care of a local woodcarver, whose name was František Rint. The designer decided to compromise his moral principles and create something special.

He soaked the bones in bleach and gradually created his creations. One of the most unusual was the chandelier, where the master used absolutely all parts of the human skeleton. In gratitude to his employer, Rint also made the Schwarzenberg coat of arms out of bones.

Human remains cannot be restored. In the 70s of the last century, they tried to strengthen the bones with cement, but then they considered this to be disrespectful to the memory of the dead. As a result, it was decided that the interior would be stored until it crumbled into dust - this is approximately another three centuries.

It is difficult to find a more striking and tragic work than a church made of bones. The Czech Republic annually welcomes thousands of guests from all over the world who want to see a unique creation of human hands. The ossuary is a kind of reminder of the coming apocalypse and death, which slowly follows each of us.

Video – Ossuary - creepy church

Ossuaries are not as pleasing to the eye as castles, but this does not reduce their artistic and historical value. For those who want to go on an alternative excursion, we have prepared a selection of the most visited ossuaries (or, as they are also called, “ossuaries”) in the Czech Republic.

TOP 5 most visited ossuaries in the Czech Republic

1. Ossuary in Sedlec, Kutna Hora: chandelier made of human bones

The unique ossuary under the Chapel of All Saints, located in the cemetery in Sedlec near the city of Kutna Hora, is decorated only with human bones. The remains of 40,000 people who died during the plague and the Hussite wars are kept here. The main attraction of the ossuary in Kutna Hora is a grandiose chandelier made from all types of bones of the human body. Here you can also see sculptures made of human shoulder blades and collarbones, as well as pyramids of skulls.

Schwarzenberg coat of arms made of bones

The 14th century chapel itself, in which the ossuary is located, is also of interest. At the beginning of the 18th century and in the second half of the 19th century, it underwent two restorations. During the last of them, remarkable decorations from human bones were created in the bone vault in Sedlec: a chandelier, a cross and the Schwarzenberg coat of arms. The author of all this was the master from Ceske Skalice, František Rint, who left his signature on the bones.

Address: Zámecká 284 03 Kutná Hora

Working hours: Monday - Sunday 08 - 18:00 from April to August; October, March - 09:00 - 17:00, November-February 09:00 - 16:00.

Tickets: 90 CZK full, 60 CZK reduced.

In July and August, on Mondays at 21:00, the Sedlec Ossuary offers night tours by candlelight only. The tour is led by a costumed guide and ends with a mini-concert of baroque music at the top of the church. The cost of a night excursion is 140 CZK (adults), 95 CZK - students, children under 6 years old are free.

Chandelier made of human bones

2. Ossuary in Brno under the Church of St. Yacouba: second largest in Europe

Archaeologists discovered the second largest (after Parisian) ossuary in Europe under the Church of St. Jakub in Brno only in 2001. The number of people buried here is 50 thousand! Anthropological studies have shown that victims of medieval plague and cholera epidemics are buried here, as well as those who died in the 30 Years' War and Swedish raids.

Cemetery near the Church of St. The Jakub Square on today's Jakub Square in Brno has existed since the 13th century. As the city grew, it gradually expanded. Over time, there was not enough space, and the city walls prevented the expansion of the cemetery area. Then a special burial system was introduced in Brno: 10-12 years after burial, the grave was opened, the remains were taken out, and a new deceased was buried in the same place, and the bones of the previous one were placed in ossuaries.

The ossuary in Brno is positioned not as a tourist attraction, but as an object of memory of the city. No more than 20 people are allowed on one excursion. They even composed original music especially for the ossuary to enhance the impression of the visit.

Together with the ossuary under the Church of St. Yakub, you can also visit the tomb of the monks, where there are more than 20 mummified bodies.

Church of St. Jakuba, Brno

Address: Jakubské náměstí 602 00 Brno

Working hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 9:30 - 18:00.

Tickets: 70 CZK, 140 CZK.

3. Ossuary in Melník in the oldest church in the Czech Republic

In the crypt of one of the oldest churches in the Czech Republic, located in the town of Melnik near Prague, there is also one of the largest ossuary repositories in the Czech Republic. Between 10 and 15 thousand people are buried in this Gothic ossuary. The bone depository operated near the cemetery at the church, which was in short supply during the plague epidemics. According to the inscriptions on the walls, the ossuary was used until 1775, when the cemetery was moved to the Church of St. Lyudmila. The bones here are arranged in the form of simple ornaments. The remains with traces of war injuries are collected in one place.

Church of St. Peter and Paul, in which the ossuary is located, was built at the turn of the 10th-11th centuries. The modern appearance of the church is a Gothic restoration of 1520. The 60-meter baroque tower of the church with an observation deck, which offers a beautiful view of Melnik, is also open to the public.

Church of St. Peter and Paul, Melnik

Address: Na Vyhlídce 18 276 01 Mělník

Working hours: Tuesday - Friday 09:30-12:30, 13:15 - 16:00, Saturday - Sunday 10:00 - 12:30, 13:15 - 16:00

Tickets: 20 CZK reduced, 30 CZK full

4. Baroque ossuary near the Church of St. Bartholomew in Kolin

An unusual Baroque ossuary in Kolin (50 km from Prague) with four semicircular altar projections was built in 1732-33. designed by an unknown architect who used early Gothic elements of city fortifications in the construction. Inside the ossuary there is a Baroque altar. The bones filling the apses come from the graves of the former St. Bartholomew's cemetery. Also here you can see symbols of city power, paintings and a marble plaque with the names of those who died from the plague epidemic in 1680. The bones for the four obelisks were brought here in 1850 from the cemetery near the Church of St. John the Baptist in Kutna Hora.

The ossuary in Kolin is located near the Church of St. Bartholomew. In front of it are early Baroque sculptures of St. Vojtech and St. Prokop, which previously decorated the Church of St. Vita na Zalabi. You can visit the ossuary as part of a tour of the Church of St. Bartholomew.

Address: Brandlova 25 280 02 Kolín

Working hours: Saturday 10:00 - 16:00, Sunday 13:00 - 16:00.

Tickets: 20 CZK reduced, 40 CZK full.

Church of St. Bartholomew, Colin

5. Ossuary in Nizhkov: a skull that brings happiness

12 km southwest of Zdar nad Sazavou you can visit another unique historical ossuary. This is the ossuary in Nizhkov from 1709. The reason for the creation of the ossuary was also the limited area of ​​the local cemetery.

The ossuary in Nizhkov is interesting because, with the exception of minor restorations, it looks exactly the same as it did several centuries ago. There are four pyramids of bones here, rising almost to the ceiling. According to archaeologists, 6-8 thousand people are buried here. Thanks to local climatic conditions, the folded bones and bleached skulls were preserved in excellent condition.

One of the skulls in the ossuary is polished by numerous touches of the hands of visitors. The long scar on it shows that the skull was once cut in battle, but later knitted back together. There is a belief that if you touch this skull, it will bring happiness for life.

To visit the ossuary in Nizhkov, you must first register for the tour. Admission is free, but it is customary to bring small gifts for the owner of the ossuary - the local Roman Catholic parish, which can be placed in the donor's box.

Address: 592 12 Nižkov

Website: nizkov.cz, email. mail: [email protected]

The article uses photographs from kudyznudy.cz, ceckatelevize.cz