ummm...it's a church...made of bones...what?

So September 28th was Svätováclavskej deň (or St. Wenceslas Day). St. Wenceslas is the patron saint of the Czech Republic--also the fellar that the Christmas carol is about. Nothing really happens on that day except everyone gets the day off from work/school (like the Memorial Day/Labor Day of the Czech Republic). So NYU gave us the day off and day before too! So on the 27th, a eight of us went to the town of Kutna Hora. There's nothing really in the town EXCEPT for a church completely decorated with bones. WHATTT??? So we decided to hop on a bus and go check it out. It was only like an hour and a half away, so not too bad.


So the exterior of the church is nothing new just your everyday typical church.

Looks can be deceiving

So the church was added around 1400 to the center of a vast cemetery. All the bodies exhumed were placed in the ossuary (chamber for bones). The bodies amassed due to the Black Plague and the Hussite Wars in the 14th century. In 1870, the Schwartzenberg family employed a woodcarver, František Rint, to arrange the bones. Well, he arranged them alright. He constructed four massive bells, one in each corner of the church.

He also constructed a chandelier for the center of the church, which contains at least one of all the bones of the human body...disgusting yet strangely awesome.

He also recreated the crest of the Schwartzenberg family--obviously entirely out of bones. It is eerily accurate.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj37ydd1AX11tohjWjdvbIEBDJZuZg63T4QOKyZhqbDXz8x5wS7F26AdpTy-bhJhPnUO7dyrWW4vJhHgsBkZ0kLJOL0mQ3cy8L-OrF5ZCfGQzMk0BRKUsJc4UDCh66o2fTREMaUMzmEyhQ/s400/295b.jpg
Fell free to compare.
Note: behind the crest is one of the bells.

Pretty much the creepiest place...EVER.

In total, there were approximately 44,000 skeletons used...WHAT???

Anyways, there's not much else in the town, so we grabbed lunch with what appetites we had then headed back for Prague. Glad I went. Don't really won't to go back.