Thursday, 8 August 2013

PRAGUE

When I was in Prague I went on a day trip to Kutna Hora, which is just over an hour away by train. There I went to see the Sedlec Ossuary which lies beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints a Roman Catholic chapel. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people some of which are artistically arranged to decorate the walls and ceiling of the building. There is four mounds of skulls one in each corner, skulls are strung up like bunting along the walls and from the ceiling.

From the ceiling also hangs a hug chandelier made from at least one of every bone in the human body. A coat of arms also adorns one side of the chapel and the artist name made from bones is pinned to one wall. This is by far the one of the strangest places I have ever seen or been into. There is so much death around you it almost becomes comical and fake. I came to see this chapel because bone churches are going to be a large part of my dissertation and while researching this one I found a documentary filming of it by Jan Svankmajer the Czech film maker. The first is his original film with a voice over recording of an actual tour-guides tour. This, however, was banned by Czech communist authorities for alleged subversion and the tour guides voice was replaced by a spoken poem and a jazz arrangement which is the second video.