Strange chapel in Poland built out of 1000s of human bones

Friday, November 8th, 2013

In Czaszek one of the oldest towns in southwestern Poland there is a strange chapel which has been constructed of human bones.

Between 1776 and 1804, the local priest, Vaclav Tomasek, painstakingly gathered, cleaned and carefully arranged skeletons recovered from numerous, shallow mass graves left by the Thirty Years’ War, Silesian Wars and cholera outbreaks.

Modeled off of similar ossuaries and catacombs in Rome, the chapel was intended as a shrine for the dead, as well as a “memento mori” for the living. Have a look

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News category: Odd Spot.

Tags: chapel, Poland

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