Kutná Hora, Part 1: The Bone Church

Prague has so many things to see and do that, to be honest, I have barely begun to explore this city. But Prague isn't the only place in the Czech Republic worth visiting. This past Sunday, some friends and I went to the town of Kutná Hora and its adjoining town Sedlec.

Kutna Hora 70 km (40 miles) southeast of Prague, about an hour by train.
The area in between is mainly farmland, which is surprising if you're used to urban sprawl.

After a pleasant, short (and cheap--$10 round trip, cheaper if you buy more than one ticket) train journey, we arrived at Kutná Hora hlavní nádraží (main railway station). The train station is actually away from the city center, in Sedlec, but there is a connecting local train into the city center, as well as buses and shuttles. However, if you want to see what Sedlec has to offer, the main two sites are a fairly short walk away: the elaborately named Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist and the famous Sedlec Ossuary, aka the Bone Church. The Church of Our Lady will get the next post, and St. Barbara's in Kutná Hora the one after. But now, let's stick to the ribs. Bone humor!

Some bones.

 MORE BONES.

SO MANY BONES!!!

An ossuary (kostnice) is a repository for bones. In churchyards where space was at a premium, bodies would be buried and then, after a certain time, the bones retrieved and put in the ossuary, allowing someone else to take that grave. Efficient! In New Orleans, the above ground family crypts allow for a similar practice (old bones are shoved to the back, where they fall down to the bottom, allowing the space to be taken by a new body), so this idea hasn't completely outlived its usefulness. The Sedlec Ossuary is not the other extant ossuary in Europe. Indeed, it's not even the only ossuary in the greater Prague area (Mělník has one which I'll get to one of these days). So what makes Sedlec's so special?

I mean, what town doesn't have a place like this?

The Sedlec Ossuary, which is becoming ever more famous and popular, is known for its bone sculptures. Many ossuaries have bone stacks, bone piles, even skulls and bones integrated into the very walls of the building--but it's hard to think of any others that have a chandelier made of bone, containing at least example of almost every bone in the human body.

Oddly, the cherubs are the creepiest thing in this picture.

Or a family crest, complete with the image of a raven pecking at an eye socket.

Such a lovely image for a family crest...

The bone sculptures of the Sedlec Ossuary are a relatively new addition, though. Well, relatively. The burial ground itself dates back to at least 1278, which is when Henry, the abbot of the nearby monastery was sent by the king to the Holy Land. When he returned, he brought back some soil from Golgotha (aka Calvary, aka The Place of Skulls, i.e. the place was Jesus was crucified) and sprinkled it over the burial ground. This made the cemetery a place--forgive the dad joke--people were dying to get in to. Even more so. The Black Death and the Hussite Wars filled the cemetery even more, often with mass graves.

In the early 15th Century, the first iteration of the cemetery chapel was built, with the lower level designed as an ossuary. By 1511, the task of arranging the bones fell to a monk of the order. According to legend, the monk was blind or half-blind or maybe just near-sighted, but arranging the bones miraculously restored his sight. The original Gothic structure was rebuilt and redesigned in the Baroque style in the early 1700s, giving us the building we have today. The ossuary is on the lower level, with the upper level being a relatively spare chapel full of light.

The Upper Chapel, which shows almost no hint of what lies beneath.

In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver by trade, was hired by the extremely wealthy and powerful Schwarzenberg noble family (their Wikipedia page makes for interesting and dizzying reading) to, well, do something with the bones. And boy, did he ever.

It would make an excellent planter.

"Our family crest...in bone...what a...flattering tribute?" -- Some Schwarzenberg, probably

The ossuary contains the bones of between forty and sixty thousand people, so Rint had plenty of raw (ew) material with which to work. In addition to the chandelier, the coat of arms, and the general massive piles of bones, there are monstrances and chalices, plus general decorations, all in bone. He even signed his work.

If you sign your name using bones now, the FBI will likely set up a task force to find you.

The Sedlec Ossuary isn't large, really just one room and the stairway that leads down to it, but there is an impressive amount of bone sculpture and decorations in such a small space. That said, I found myself feeling a bit underwhelmed. The creativity and work involved is very impressive, and the utterly foreign idea of using human bones as decoration in a sacred space is certainly curious, but I think it's a case of too much of a good thing. A small chapel with a magnificent bone chandelier would be disturbing. Adding the coat of arms would start to make it feel less terrifying and more intriguing. By the time you get to there being bones everywhere--literally draped along the walls and across the ceiling--the overall effect is, I think, somewhat neutered. They cease being bones and just become any other decorative medium. But if that happens, they, and the ossuary itself, loses its strange power. It's not horrific (it was never meant to be), but it's not really hopeful, either. It's just sort of there.

Oh, and there's a memorial about the Black Death, just for good measure.

Am I saying not to visit the Sedlec Ossuary? No. I mean, whatever else, it is a truly unique place, and since there are many other things worth seeing in the area, you won't regret going. Plus, if you buy admission to it, the neighboring Church of Our Lady and St. Barbara's in Kutná Hora at the same time, the total cost is about $11 USD. So, definitely worth the money. But, if you're kind of meh on the idea, looking at pictures--even ones as poor as mine--may be enough.

Because it is so popular, there will almost certainly be plenty of other visitors when you go.
In general, I don't think that added to the experience...

On a slightly personal note, as I have mentioned before, my grandfather emigrated from Bohemia about a hundred years ago. He came from Kladno, some 120 kilometers from Kutná Hora, so he wasn't a local boy. However, since many people sought to be buried at Sedlec, and also since many of the bones in the ossuary likely come from people who died in the Hussite Wars--a time of great upheaval and movement in Bohemia--it's not entirely impossible that some ancestor, 40 generations back, is currently staring at a bunch of tourists taking photos, surrounded by thousands of nameless others, neatly arranged, forgotten, but famous in his anonymity.

In the next post, we move on to the ossuary's sister/mother site, the Church of the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint John the Baptist.

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