Kostnice (Church of Bones), Czech Republic

Prague was rubbish.

I spent a weekend there about a year and a half ago on a company holiday. (I'm lucky enough to have two very astute and humanitarian company directors, who believe that content studio staff work better- so we are treated to yearly company holidays amongst other things- And you know what? It works! Up yours, AMEX et al!)

It is a city that has been defecated on by British stag weekend culture. Hordes of cretins pouring over on easyjet flights have forced beautiful, historic pieces of architecture to house KFCs and lapdancing clubs; every building in Wenceslas square flaunting gaudy neon signs.

Luckily, about an hour's train ride outside the city, there is a church practically made out of human bones.

In the 14th century, the Plague caused the cemetery there to overflow with corpses, eventually around 40,000 too many. The skeletons were stacked in the newly built ossuary in 1511 by a half-blind monk. (Cool and spooky huh?)

A wood carver and artist named Frantisek Rint was employed to turn the bones into sculptures.
When you walk into the ossuary, you are presented with a large set of steps leading down underground, as you descend, above you hang skulls, strung in chains like Christmas decorations.
The main chamber contains 4 colossal 'bells' of stacked bones and skulls- one in each corner. Truly stunning in their magnitude and holocaust-esque eeriness.

I found it a struggle to get my head around just how many real, complex lives they represented.



Looking around, the walls and alcoves are crammed with beautifully grotesque sculptures of huge chalices, coats of arms & crowns; And so, so many hanging chains of skulls. On the coat of arms there was, memorably, the figure of a bird, its wings the bones of a persons palm.

But the most impressive piece there was the Chandelier- Awesome and imposing, it teemed with detail, femurs and humeri dangling from it's vertebrae arms. It contains every bone in the human body.

Wicked.