During my four day stay in Prague, I went on a half-day side trip with Sabrina, a girl from BC. We travelled by train to Kutna Hora, a small town about 80 km East of Prague. The round trip ticket was only about $5 Cdn. We went there on the advice of other travellers, including friends of mine back in Karlsruhe, who claimed that this town has a church, the entire interior of which is decorated with bones and skulls. I wouldn't have believed them had I not seen their pictures. The weather was great, as it was in Prague. We met a Czech guy on the train who told us about a Pearl Jam concert he had seen (I was wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt, which started the conversation). The ticket for the show was dirt cheap, but he told us that for him it was very much money. From the train station in Kutna Hora we walked about 2 km to find the part of town with this mysterious church. First we found a place to have lunch, which was pretty good and again dirt cheap. Then we found the church, which is actually very small. It's also not a church but rather an ossuary; this was a new word for me. Webster's dictionary defines ossuary as "a place where the bones of the dead are deposited; a charnel house." I'm somewhat unsure about the story of the ossuary. I can remember that the "artwork" was done entirely by one man in 1873, although the bones used are much older (up to 500 or 600 years old). I think they were bones found in numerous peasant graves which were unmarked and forgotten. The bones and skulls of about 40 000 people were used, and yes, they are all real human remains. There is also a graveyard surrounding the ossuary. Apparantly the ossuary in Kutna Hora is a popular tourist attraction, as there was a lady at the entrance charging admission (less than a dollar) and selling post cards. From the outside the ossuary looks like a normal little church (the bones are all inside). Just inside the entrance however one can see the name of the artist formed with bones. Next to his name is this formation. The ossuary consists of just one large room really in which there are no pews or seats. This is the first view we had of the interior. In each corner there is a pile of skulls, a pyramid about three to four metres in width, depth, and height. These piles are not hollow, but full of skulls and leg or arm bones (the kind of bones which would be used to make a "skull and crossbones"). Near one pile is the shield of the town or region, made entirely of bones. You can see part of one of the piles behind the shield here. The main attraction is a large chandelier hanging in the centre of the ossuary. The chandelier includes every bone in the human body. Notices the strings of jaw bones used to hang the chandelier. I wonder what this place would look like at night, with only the candles on the chandelier used to light up the room?! Because one knows what to expect, visiting the ossuary isn't as spooky or upsetting as one would expect. After checking the place out and taking some pictures, we had a few hours to kill before our train back to Prague. We visited a cathedral in the process of being renovated (really the only other thing one could possibly visit in Kutna Hora). Despite being quite large, it was almost completely empty except for a few paintings and sculptures. After seeing the cathedral we wandered over the tracks to the other side of town (where likely very few tourists ever bother to go). We found another church, this one even smaller, with its own little graveyard as well. We went through a gate covered in signs we couldn't read, and wandered around. Behind the church was a little shed. I looked in the shed and my jaw must have dropped. This little shed was full of shelves and cardboard boxes containing more skulls!! Thousands of them, right in front of my eyes! This was perhaps a little more creepy, as it came as a surprise. I started shouting to Sabrina that I had found the "leftover" stash of skulls which didn't end up in the ossuary. At that point she told me to come look at a sign on the church. Although we couldn't read it, we could certainly tell that the large number with a lot of zeroes in it was probably a fine for trespassing. I think the amount was about 50 000 Czech Crowns (about $2000 Cdn). We ran away from the church and headed for the train station. Back to the Main Page - Zurück zur Hauptseite