Catholic church, Tourist attraction
Sedlec Ossuary
Beneath a small Gothic cemetery church in Sedlec, the lower chapel is decorated with thousands of human bones, from four towering pyramids to a chandelier said to use every bone in the body.
The story
The Church of All Saints was built in the first half of the 14th century on the grounds of a former Cistercian monastery, amid a vast cemetery. Burial here became coveted after an abbot of the Sedlec monastery brought back soil from Golgotha. The two storeys carry one message, memento mori: a dark lower chapel for bones, a light-filled upper chapel for prayer. Who arranged the bones, and when, remains unclear. The pyramids stand for the heavenly mountain, skull-and-crossbones angels hover overhead, and the only secular piece is the Schwarzenberg coat of arms by František Rint. It is still a working Roman Catholic church, and a restoration begun in 2014, partly to correct a lean of nearly half a metre, continues while the site stays open.
Good to know
TAGGG AI- ✦Buy tickets in advance for a specific entry time, as capacity in the ossuary is limited.
- ✦Photography and video are not allowed inside the ossuary, so plan to simply look.
- ✦The first slot of the morning can be quiet, with tour groups often arriving in the slots that follow.