The upcoming Hallowe'en festivities calls to mind this unsettling interior from Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. We visited the Sedlec Ossuary in fall 2008 and wish now that we had better documented the incredible spectacle of ornamentation made from thousands of human skeletons.
The monastery at Sedlec became a popular burial ground in 1278 after the abbot brought back a small amount of earth from the holy land to sprinkle over the existing cemetery. Both the Black Death and the Hussite War added greatly to the estimated 40,000 - 70,000 bodies exhumed in the 15th and 16th centuries to make way for more graves and the construction of a gothic church and ossuary. These bones were left stacked until 1870 when František Rint, a wood carver by trade, was commissioned by the Schwarzenberg family to arrange the remains.
Rint went above and beyond "arranging". To walk into this space is to experience an intimacy with death, to reflect on the insignificance of the individual, but also to revel in the endless creativity of the human spirit. We did not leave in horror, but rather found terror 6 hours later on a deserted road, having lost the train station, surrounded by dark shadows looming from dense shrubbery...
The monastery at Sedlec became a popular burial ground in 1278 after the abbot brought back a small amount of earth from the holy land to sprinkle over the existing cemetery. Both the Black Death and the Hussite War added greatly to the estimated 40,000 - 70,000 bodies exhumed in the 15th and 16th centuries to make way for more graves and the construction of a gothic church and ossuary. These bones were left stacked until 1870 when František Rint, a wood carver by trade, was commissioned by the Schwarzenberg family to arrange the remains.
Rint went above and beyond "arranging". To walk into this space is to experience an intimacy with death, to reflect on the insignificance of the individual, but also to revel in the endless creativity of the human spirit. We did not leave in horror, but rather found terror 6 hours later on a deserted road, having lost the train station, surrounded by dark shadows looming from dense shrubbery...
These still give me the chills even having seen them before. An excellent subject just before Hallowe'en!
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