The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel in Sedlec, Czech Republic. It also contains the skeletal remains of about 40,000 human beings dispersed throughout the interior in artistically arranged designs. The most notable creations made of human bones are the chandelier in the center of the room and the coat of arms of the Schwarzenbergs -- the most blue-blooded of Bohemian aristocrats -- on the left.
It's difficult not to let your imagination run wild when pondering the sort of sick mind that conceived of things like a chandelier of human bones. But the real motive behind it all is quite prosaic: it was simply a matter saving space. These bones were freely given from the bodies of devout Roman Catholics all over Europe who clamored to be buried here after the Abbot of Sedlec went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1278 and brought back soil from Golgotha where Jesus had supposedly been crucified. So many wanted to be buried in Golgotha's soil that the chapel was turned into an ossuary. The remains of the previously buried were dug up and rearranged in the 16th century.
It's difficult not to let your imagination run wild when pondering the sort of sick mind that conceived of things like a chandelier of human bones. But the real motive behind it all is quite prosaic: it was simply a matter saving space. These bones were freely given from the bodies of devout Roman Catholics all over Europe who clamored to be buried here after the Abbot of Sedlec went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1278 and brought back soil from Golgotha where Jesus had supposedly been crucified. So many wanted to be buried in Golgotha's soil that the chapel was turned into an ossuary. The remains of the previously buried were dug up and rearranged in the 16th century.