There is a Chapel made of bones
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| Chapel of bones |
Ossuary
An ossuary is a type of repository used to house the bones of the dead when traditional burial space is limited. It can take the form of a chest, box, building, well, or site, and serves as a final resting place for human skeletal remains. The term "ossuary" comes from the Latin word "os," which means "bone."
Typically, a body is first buried in a temporary grave, and after several years, the skeletal remains are exhumed and transferred to an ossuary. Since bones take up less space than coffins, ossuaries offer a more efficient means of burial, allowing for the storage of the remains of many more people in a single location.
Ossuaries have been used for centuries and are found in many cultures around the world. They are often associated with religious or cultural practices, and may be adorned with intricate artwork or decoration. Some of the most well-known examples of ossuaries include the Catacombs of Paris, the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, and the Capuchin Crypt in Rome, which are all famous for their unique and elaborate displays of human bones.
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Persian ossuaries
The Zoroastrians in Persia have used a deep well for the purpose of housing the bones of the dead for over three thousand years. This well, known as astudan, is a significant part of their religious and cultural practices. Astudan translates to "the place for the bones."
Zoroastrianism has many rituals and regulations pertaining to astudans. For example, the bones are carefully placed within the well, and certain parts of the skeleton are separated before they are deposited. The bones of men, women, and children are also placed in separate sections. These regulations are intended to ensure that the dead are treated with respect and that their bones are not mixed together.
The Zoroastrian faith considers death to be a process of purification, with the body returning to the earth while the soul moves on to the afterlife. The astudan is an important part of this process, as it is believed to help purify the bones and facilitate the soul's journey.
Although astudans are primarily associated with Zoroastrianism, similar structures have been used in other cultures and religions throughout history. For example, the ancient Greeks used ossuaries for the storage of bones, and the Catacombs of Rome served a similar purpose for early Christians.
Jewish ossuaries
During the Second Temple period, Jewish burial customs were diverse and varied based on social class and religious beliefs. Wealthy Jews were often buried in burial caves, with their remains later transferred to ossuaries. These bone boxes were placed in smaller niches of the burial caves or on the benches used for the drying of the corpse. Most of these ossuaries were made of limestone and around 40% featured intricate geometrical patterns. Many were inscribed with the name of the deceased, providing a valuable source of information about naming conventions of that period in the region.
Some of the most well-known Jewish ossuaries from this period include one that bears the inscription "Simon the Temple builder," currently on display at the Israel Museum; another inscribed "Yehohanan ben Hagkol," which contained an iron nail in a heel bone suggestive of crucifixion; and another, which is subject to debate among scholars, inscribed "James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," owned by André Lemaire. Additionally, ten ossuaries were recovered from the Talpiot Tomb in 1980, several of which are reported to have names recorded in the New Testament.
While ossuaries are predominantly associated with tombs in and around Jerusalem, caches of ossuaries from the same period have also been discovered in Jericho.
Scholars continue to debate the origin and purpose of ossuary burial. One perspective is that this type of burial arose from a shift in theological beliefs about purity. In the Mishnah and Talmud, Jewish sages from the period are depicted discussing ossuary burial, with their views linked to the Pharisaic tradition. As a result, some suggest that ossuaries were first used by elite members of the Pharisaic religious school before spreading to other sects.
Others argue that the use and form of ossuaries during this period were influenced more by material conditions of the elite. The growing wealth of the urban elite in Jerusalem and Jericho, combined with a building boom that created a surplus of stone masons, allowed for new forms of burial to emerge. Some have noted that ossuaries align with Greco-Roman ideas of individuality in death and physically resemble Hellenistic chest burial. Therefore, ossuaries may have been an elite imitation of imperial burial practices that did not conflict with Jewish cultural norms.
The custom of secondary burial in ossuaries did not continue among Jews after the Second Temple period and was not widely practiced among Jews outside of the Land of Israel. However, there are some exceptions to this trend. After the destruction of the Second Temple, cheap imitations of ossuaries made of clay were created in Galilee. The last stone ossuaries are found in the Beth She'arim necropolis and date from the late third century CE. Furthermore, at least one ossuary from the Second Temple period has been found in Alexandria.
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In Christianity
Roman Catholic ossuaries
Ossuaries can be found in various locations throughout Europe and other parts of the world. Examples include the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome, Italy; the Martyrs of Otranto in southern Italy; the Fontanelle cemetery and Purgatorio ad Arco in Naples, Italy; the San Bernardino alle Ossa in Milan, Italy; the Brno Ossuary and the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic; the Czermna Skull Chapel in Poland; and the Capela dos Ossos ("Chapel of Bones") in Évora, Portugal. In the village of Wamba, located in the province of Valladolid, Spain, there is an impressive ossuary inside the local church, containing over a thousand skulls dating from between the 12th and 18th centuries. Additionally, the Catacombs of Paris are a famous example of an ossuary.
Outside of Europe, the Monastery of San Francisco in Lima, Peru, contains an ossuary in its catacombs. Another notable example is the Douaumont ossuary in France, which houses the remains of over 130,000 French and German soldiers who died during World War I at the Battle of Verdun.
Largest ossuary
Main article: Catacombs of Paris
Paris, France is home to a vast network of catacombs, also known as ossuaries or charnel houses, where the neatly arranged skeletal remains of six million people can be found. These catacombs consist of approximately 300 kilometers (190 miles) of tunnels and pathways, with 11,000 square meters (2.7 acres) of space filled with the bones of those who were re-interred from the city's overcrowded cemeteries during the late 1700s.
Catacombs of Paris
The Catacombs of Paris are a network of underground ossuaries that hold the remains of over six million people. These ossuaries are located in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris's ancient stone quarries. The Barrière d'Enfer, a former city gate, marks the southern entrance to this ossuary. The creation of this ossuary was a part of the effort to eliminate the overcrowding in Paris's cemeteries, which became an urgent matter following a series of basement wall collapses around the Holy Innocents' Cemetery in 1774.
Starting in 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons began to transfer remains from most of Paris's cemeteries to a mine shaft that was opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire. The ossuary remained largely forgotten until the early 19th century when it became a popular venue for concerts and private events. After further renovations and the construction of accesses around Place Denfert-Rochereau, the ossuary was opened to public visitation in 1874.
Today, the Catacombs have become one of the fourteen City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées since 2013. Although the ossuary only comprises a small section of the underground mines of Paris, Parisians now often refer to the entire tunnel network as the catacombs.
History
Paris' cemeteries
The earliest burial grounds in Paris were located on the southern outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. However, after the Western Roman Empire's end and the ensuing Frankish invasions, Parisians abandoned this settlement, and urban expansion began on the marshy Right Bank in the late 10th century. Instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, the Paris Right Bank settlement began with cemeteries near its centre.
One of the central cemeteries was located around the 5th-century Notre-Dame-des-Bois church, which became the property of the Saint-Opportune parish after the original church was demolished during the 9th-century Norman invasions. By the end of the 12th century, the cemetery, which filled the land between the present rue Saint-Denis, rue de la Ferronnerie, rue de la Lingerie, and the rue Berger, had become the city's principal cemetery. However, by the end of the same century, it was already overflowing, and the long-dead were exhumed to make room for more burials. The bones were then packed into the roofs and walls of "charnier" galleries built inside the cemetery walls.
Despite several decrees limiting the use of the cemetery, the situation did not improve, and by the end of the 18th century, the central burial ground had become a two-meter-high mound of earth filled with centuries of Parisian dead, as well as the remains from the Hôtel-Dieu hospital and the Morgue. Other Parisian parishes had their own burial grounds, but conditions in Les Innocents cemetery were the worst.
Finally, in the late 18th century, it was decided to create three new large-scale suburban burial grounds on the outskirts of the city and to condemn all existing parish cemeteries within city limits. This decision marked the beginning of the creation of the Catacombs of Paris, which were built to consolidate the remains from the city's overflowing cemeteries into a small section of the underground mines of Paris.
Renovation and ossuary decor
During the early years of the Catacombs, it was an unorganized repository of bones. However, Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, the director of the Paris Mine Inspection Service from 1810, oversaw renovations that turned the caverns into a mausoleum that could be visited. He not only directed the stacking of skulls and femurs into the patterns that can be seen today, but also used cemetery decorations that he could find to complement the walls of bones. Some of these decorations were formerly stored on the Tombe-Issoire property, but many had disappeared after the 1789 Revolution.
In addition, Héricart de Thury created a room dedicated to displaying the various minerals found beneath Paris, as well as another room that showed various skeletal deformities found during the creation and renovation of the catacombs. He also added monumental tablets and archways bearing ominous warning inscriptions, as well as stone tablets bearing descriptions or comments about the nature of the ossuary. To ensure the safety of visitors, the Catacombs were walled off from the rest of Paris's Left Bank extensive tunnel network.
Eastern Orthodox ossuaries
Ossuaries have been used in the Eastern Orthodox Church for a long time. According to the biblical teaching that the body of a believer is a "temple of the Holy Spirit," the remains of an Orthodox Christian are treated with reverence, having been sanctified and transfigured by the sacraments of the Church. In Orthodox monasteries, when a member of the community passes away, their remains are buried for one to three years, and then exhumed, cleaned, and stored in the monastery's charnel house. If the departed is believed to be a saint, their remains may be placed in a reliquary; otherwise, the bones are usually mixed together in groups (skulls in one place, long bones in another, etc.). The remains of an abbot may be placed in a separate ossuary made of wood or metal.
Ossuaries are also used by laypeople in the Greek Orthodox Church. After being buried for one to three years, the remains are exhumed and washed with wine, perfumed, and placed in a small ossuary made of wood or metal that bears the name of the departed. The family often gathers with the parish priest to celebrate a parastas (memorial service) on the anniversary of death. The ossuary is then placed in a room, often inside or near the church, that is dedicated to this purpose.
Chapel of Skulls
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| Chapel of bones |
In 1776, while America was declaring independence from England and bodies were piling up in the American Revolutionary War, a priest and a grave digger in the small Polish town of Czermna were also busy collecting bodies, but for a very different purpose.
St. Bartholomew's Church, also known as Kaplica Czaszek, is located in Czermna, a kilometer north of Kudowa Zdroj. The church's ceiling and walls are adorned with the skulls and bones of over 3,000 people, arranged in various patterns, mostly in a repeating crossed-bones Jolly Roger style. Another 21,000 skeletons are stuffed in the church crypt below. The Czech priest Vaclav Tomasek and J. Langer, the local grave digger, collected, cleaned, and arranged up to 24,000 human skeletons, which filled the church. It took them 18 years, from 1776 to 1794, to accomplish this.
Wars, skirmishes between Catholics, Hussites, and Protestants, and epidemics left mass graves in the area. Tomasek found the mass graves by observing where local dogs went to dig for bones. As they uncovered and cleaned the thousands of skeletons, the priest and grave digger set aside interesting skulls for display in the church. Today, the skulls are still on display, including a Tartar warrior's skull, the Czermna mayor and his wife, skulls with bullet holes, a skull with syphilis, and even a giant's skull. Besides these special skulls are the skulls of the priest and the grave digger themselves, presiding proudly over the Chapel of Skulls they created and now call their final resting place.
A trapdoor to the crypt below can be opened to reveal the other 21,000 skeletons stacked just below. A recording in the church explains the chapel's history, but it is only available in Polish, Czech, and German. The priest and the grave digger saw the chapel as a "sanctuary of silence."
Credits - Kaushal Naik
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