Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

Kutna Hora, Czechia

My main reason for choosing a tour to Kutna Hora was timing.  I needed a half day tour, after 10 am, and this worked.  So I signed up, paid, and went.


It was actually quite interesting.  It was one of the richest towns in Bohemia because of the silver mines.  So rich that the local cathedral, Saint Barbora was one of the only cathedrals not built by royalty or nobility.  It was built by the miners, and so there are frescos and stained glass showing the work of the miners.  And here is a statue; the miner is dressed in white not reflecting piety or purity, but for a practical reason:  in order to see him better underground.



The town is, of course, picturesque.  And they bragged about their food.


But the real draw of the town is the Sedlec Ossuary.  I had never seen one before.  This was my first view:


My first thought:  This is way cool!  And I started taking pictures of it all.  Then I realized that these were actual people once, and it felt really macabre.  But here is the brief story.

Back in the crusades, 1278 to be exact, the abbot of the monastery brought back some dirt from Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified.  He sprinkled it in the cemetery and this made it a desirable place to be buried; people sent remains from all over central Europe. Various renovations and repairs and burials unearthed graves, and these people had to be reburied.  In all there are about 40,000 skeletons there, some estimates go up to 70,000.


There is a central chandelier, for which you must look elsewhere because my picture is out of focus, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body.

So...these arrangements were made as a way of honoring those people, not as mere decor.

posted by Marion @ 7:28 PM