This is the Kutna Hora Cathedral in the Czech town of Sedlec, probably the most "gothic" of all the cathedrals built in the gothic era.
Looks like your normal everyday Cathedral, doesn't it? Well from the outside it indeed does but INSIDE the cathedral has a rather macabre secret.
During a seige in a mideavel war the cemetary of the Kutna Hora was unearthed and all who were burried there taken out for fear of having their graves robbed. The Monks stored away their skeletal remains in several chapels inside the cathedral where they remained for 400 years. Then in the 1800s one of those bone filled chapels was redecorated by a local woodworker who decided that those deceased churchgoers could still have a use for the community and Christianity after death.
It is estimated that the remains from over 40 000 people were used in this.
Looks like your normal everyday Cathedral, doesn't it? Well from the outside it indeed does but INSIDE the cathedral has a rather macabre secret.
During a seige in a mideavel war the cemetary of the Kutna Hora was unearthed and all who were burried there taken out for fear of having their graves robbed. The Monks stored away their skeletal remains in several chapels inside the cathedral where they remained for 400 years. Then in the 1800s one of those bone filled chapels was redecorated by a local woodworker who decided that those deceased churchgoers could still have a use for the community and Christianity after death.
It is estimated that the remains from over 40 000 people were used in this.
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