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http://www.fodors.com/news/photos/these-horrifyingly-beautiful-places-are-made-out-of-human-bones

Bet you thought we didn’t have the guts to run this article. But this list is going tibia okay.

If you find the idea of buildings decorated with human bones to be rib-tickling fun, or at the very least humerus in nature, then we have an intriguing list of places for you. And while you might have a bone to pick with us about our excessive use of skeletal puns (trying to keep the creepy vibe to a minimum here), they do seem appropriate when speaking about catacombs, charnel houses, churches, ossuaries, and other global sites built out of, or at the very least filled to the brim with, human remains. This is the perfect opportunity for you to bone up on what you know about cadaver-based architecture. OK, we’ll stop with the puns—for now.

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PHOTO: Presse750 | Dreamstime.com

1 OF 10

Capela dos Ossos

WHERE: Portugal

The Capela dos Ossos, or Chapel of Bones, in Évora, Portugal, is a great example of what builders can do when they have too many bones on their hands. In the 16th century, when space needed to be made in local cemeteries, skeletons were exhumed and then artfully incorporated into the very fabric of the chapel’s walls and ceiling. It’s a small space, but fans of skeletons won’t be disappointed, as it’s packed with the remains of the dead, numbering in the thousands.

INSIDER TIPThe Capela dos Ossos is located in the Igreja (church) de São Francisco, in Évora’s UNESCO Historic Center, surrounded by other noteworthy historical sites, like the Igreja da Graça, worth visiting as well.

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PHOTO: Gandolfo Cannatella/Shutterstock

2 OF 10

The Capuchin Catacombs

WHERE: Sicily

If you’re after a bit of a thrill with a hefty dose of the macabre, the Capuchin Catacombs, situated in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, won’t disappoint. Chock-full of thousands of desiccated, well-dressed corpses (appearances need to be kept up even in the afterlife, apparently), the catacombs got their start in the 1500s as a final resting place for monks who had passed. Later in the century, when the bodies were exhumed, the Sicilians discovered that the cadavers had been naturally mummified. And for centuries thereafter, a culture of mummification persisted. Those who could afford it, or were esteemed enough to be honored with the embalming process, were mummified—with an awful lot of them still hanging around today, more or less intact.
The Catacombs are open all year round, although are closed Sunday afternoons from “late October to late March.”

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PHOTO: Fatima Flores via Wikimedia Commons, [CC BY-SA 4.0]

3 OF 10

Convento de San Francisco

WHERE: Peru

In Lima, the capital of Peru, in the lower levels of the Convento de San Francisco, tucked away inside the eerie ossuary, you’ll stumble across an army of the dead. Tens of thousands of sets of human bones claim this dank abode as their deathly home. The catacombs below are stuffed with human skulls and bones, arranged in stacks and circular shapes throughout. The remains are visible in different rooms and in wells in the floor, which are covered by metal bars—presumably to keep you from falling in with the dead and adding to this Franciscan monastery’s grim collection.

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PHOTO: Ross Brinkerhoff / Fodor's Travel

4 OF 10

Catacombes de Paris

WHERE: France

The dead live below the streets of Paris. Perhaps “live” is the wrong verb here, but if you sojourn down to the Catacombes de Paris, you’ll have the opportunity to wander through old limestone quarry tunnels that now serve as catacombs for the City of Lights. The walls are stacked to the ceiling with skulls and bones, numbering around 6 million, which were placed there when the city decided to clean out its dangerous cemeteries (cave-ins and overcrowding) in the late 1700s.
The Catacombes, accessible from Place Denfert-Rochereau, are open from 10 am to 8 pm daily except on Mondays and on public holidays. It’s a popular attraction, so budget some extra time to wait on line, especially on the weekend.

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PHOTO: Spectral-design | Dreamstime.com

5 OF 10

Sedlec Ossuary

WHERE: The Czech Republic

The Sedlec Ossuary, nestled away in the Czech town of Kutna Hora, is another example of a religious monument cleverly adorned with human bones. The highlights inside this chapel include a massive bone chandelier, bone candelabras, bone chalices, a bone coat of arms (for the Schwarzenberg family), and bone monstrances. With more than 40,000 human skeletons on display, taken from a nearby cemetery (made sacred with dirt brought back from the Holy Land), the Sedlec Ossuary offers visitors an experience that is truly haunting, and beautiful.

INSIDER TIPThe ossuary, about an hour outside of Prague, is open every day of the year except December 24th.

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PHOTO: Sertanyaman | Dreamstime.com

6 OF 10

Trunyan Cemetery

WHERE: Bali, Indonesia

When local tradition dictates that you can’t bury your dead, people have to find something else to do with all of those bones. In Bali, Indonesia, among some of the indigenous Bali Aga people, corpses are exposed to the elements to decompose. If you happened upon the cemetery in Trunyan—a village set against the shores of Lake Batur (a highland caldera lake)—and caught sight of the human remains left out in varying states of decay, you’d be in for quite a shock if you hadn’t been warned ahead of time. The bones, once desiccated to a sufficient degree, are then arranged under a fragrant “magic” Taru Menyan tree to mask the smell of all of that rotting organic matter.

INSIDER TIPYou’ll need to book a boat with a local to reach the cemetery. As tourism is big business here these days, be prepared to deal with aggressive touts offering a range of services at varying prices.

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PHOTO: Ross Brinkerhoff / Fodor's Travel

7 OF 10

Eggenburg Charnel

WHERE: Austria

Given enough bones to work with, people, no matter where they happen to be, will try to do something creative with them. The Eggenburg Charnel, located cleverly enough in the small town of Eggenburg, Austria, is no exception to this rule. This charnel house (a vault for bones) serves as another example of how to skillfully stack skulls, femurs, tibiae, humeri and an assortment of other bones in a manner that’s pleasing to the eye. Eggenburg Charnel, which is over 600 years old, hosts thousands of skeletal remains, which you can gaze upon at a distance, from above the charnel pit down to where all of those imaginatively piled bones lie.

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PHOTO: Kevin Lakhani via Wikimedia Commons, [CC BY-SA 3.0]

8 OF 10

The Basilica of St. Ursula

WHERE: Germany

The Basilica of St. Ursula, in Cologne, Germany, houses the Golden Chamber, where the bones of St. Ursula and a whopping 11,000 virgins (probably a gross overestimate) are said to rest. Legend has it that St. Ursula and her accompanying virgins ran into the Huns on their way to Cologne and all met gruesome ends. Compared to other destinations on this list, the shallow surface patterns of human remains arranged across the walls of the Golden Chamber might be a bone of contention for fans of the macabre, hoping for stacks upon stacks of ingeniously exhibited bones. Even so, the tasteful skeletal splendor on display here is quite eye-catching, nonetheless.

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PHOTO: Scull Chapel, Czermna, Poland / Kaplica Czaszek w Czermnej by Mariusz Cieszewski/Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland [CC BY-ND 2.0]

9 OF 10

Czermna’s Skull Chapel

WHERE: Poland

Not to be left in the dust of its European neighbors, Poland offers up some bone viewing pleasure with Czermna’s Skull Chapel. Like other human bone structures of its kind, thousands of bones adorn the ceilings and walls of this somber Baroque chapel, with a particular emphasis placed on skulls and tibiae. One detail of note is the fact that the remains come from souls who perished during the Thirty Years’ War, the Silesian Wars, or succumbed to disease. The Kaplica Czaszek (Skull Chapel), assembled by the priest Vaclav Tomasek in the late 1700s, was built to help people reflect on death and salvation.

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PHOTO: Milano, San Bernardino alle Ossa by Luca Fasolo [CC BY-SA 2.0]

10 OF 10

San Bernardino alle Ossa

WHERE: Italy

While Milan might be a premier fashion capital, it’s also home to small church where the bones and skulls inside wear absolutely nothing at all (how immodest!). The ossuary was constructed in 1210 to house the bones from a nearby hospital cemetery, with the church coming later in 1269. The bones were used to adorn the walls of the chapel, giving this otherwise plain-looking church a spine-chilling (last bone pun, we promise) treasure inside, making a visit worthwhile.

INSIDER TIPOnce you’re inside the church, make your way to the chapel (follow the sign) deeper inside, where the holy bone art is on display.

Philadelphia Inquirer, Wednesday, October 30, 2013, Page A2, Staff Reports/Science:

Preserving history: Embalming in U.S.

0 COMMENTS

EVI NUMEN / Mütter Museum

The Mütter Museum's Anna Dhody with 1950s embalming instruments. "The Civil War was the catalyst," she says.

TOM AVRIL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

POSTED: Wednesday, October 30, 2013, 2:01 AM

When a soldier died on a Civil War battlefield, it was often a long way to the family burial ground.
If it was too long, and the weather was warm, well - perhaps the less said, the better.
Unless, of course, you are Anna Dhody, curator at the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
Just in time for Halloween, Dhody is speaking at the Wagner Free Institute of Science on Wednesday evening on a macabre subject: the history of embalming in the United States.

The practice of preserving the dead dates back at least to the ancient Egyptians, known for their skill in mummifying remains. But embalming did not really take off in this country until the Civil War, when large numbers of people died far from home, said Dhody, a physical forensic anthropologist by training.
"The Civil War," she said, "was the catalyst."
The preservative of choice, for at least the next few decades after that: arsenic.
Among other drawbacks, the poison made it tricky for investigators trying to rule out foul play, said Dhody, a consultant to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office and occasional adviser to the TV shows House and Bones.
In addition to being the subject of Dhody's talk, embalming practices are featured in a new permanent exhibit at the Mütter, titled "Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits: Injury, Death and Healing in Civil War Philadelphia."
One photograph depicts the embalming facility of a Dr. Bunnell near Fredericksburg, Va., whose sign proudly guaranteed that treated bodies would be "Free From Odor or Infection."
Visitors can learn about gangrene, an all-too-common consequence of battlefield wounds in the 1800s. An interactive video gives museumgoers the experience of having an arm amputated, minus the pain. And they are introduced to prominent 19th-century Philadelphia physician S. Weir Mitchell, credited with coining the phrase phantom limb syndrome - the mysterious sensation that an amputated limb is still attached.
When soldiers died, their bodies typically were taken home by rail car. If they started to decompose before reaching their destinations, they were taken off the train and buried, Dhody said.
Even as embalming grew popular, it was performed on just 40,000 of the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the war, due partly to the cost.
In addition to arsenic, embalmers used toxic substances such as mercury and turpentine. Embalming surgeons arrived soon after a battle's conclusion, setting up tents where they would pump preservatives into the arteries of cadavers, Dhody said.
It worked, in the sense that the bodies were preserved for a while from microbial decay. But there were potential long-term consequences, because caskets didn't last forever.
"These caskets decompose," Dhody said, "and unleash a fury of toxic chemicals."
Indeed, there is evidence that arsenic from old cemeteries has leached into groundwater, said John Konefes, retired director of the Iowa Waste Reduction Center at the University of Northern Iowa.
Today, the primary preservative used by embalmers is formaldehyde, said Tony Moore, director of funeral-service education at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pa. He estimated that 25 percent to 30 percent of people in the United States opt for cremation, though some choose both: embalming for the viewing, followed by cremation.
Increasingly popular are "green burials" that use minimal chemicals, with the goal of returning bodies to the earth whence they came.
Though her goal is to inform, Dhody grants that her topic may appeal to some in late October because they are in the mood for the ghoulish.
Look no further than the Mütter's current motto:
"Disturbingly informative."

If You Go

"Preserving the Final Moment: A Brief History of Embalming in America"
Where: Wagner Free Institute of Science, 1700 W. Montgomery Ave.
When: 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Cost: Free. Suggested donation $8 to $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors
Advance registration advised: https://embalming inamerica.eventbrite.com

tavril@phillynews.com

deathternity

Friday, July 14, 2017

Horrifyingly Beautiful Places Made Of Human Bones

These Horrifyingly Beautiful Places Are Made out of Human Bones