Bone Church

While being abroad in Europe I discovered one of my all-time favorite cities – Prague. I wasn’t expecting to fall in love in Europe but Prague had stolen my heart and I have yet to get it back. I think about Prague all the time, whenever I get an itch to travel I picture myself walking down the old streets of Prague in the warm summer heat being greeted by beautiful old architecture and friendly street vendors.

During my time in Prague we took a trip to the outskirts of the city to visit a church called Kutná Hora or otherwise known as, the bone church. This church is exactly what it sounds like, it is decorated from wall to wall in human bones. Creepy right?

Story goes that a local abbot made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and brought back sacred soil to spread across the Sedlec cemetery in front of the church. After the public got ahold of this knowledge, Sedlec cemetery became one of the most famous places to get buried. Between the plague and the crusades over 40,000 people were buried at the here.

While Kunta Hora was being built all the bones began to get stacked around the church, sitting undisturbed until about the late 1800s when a local woodcarver named Francis Rint was hired to make something beautiful out of the remains.

Although may some might find it unsettling or creepy I couldn’t help but feel fascinated by my surroundings. So many humans and so much history kept in one place fills you with a sense of wonder and awe. Prague – even though you have a church filled with human bones I still love you and your weirdness.

Kerilyn Kostek

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