A Strange Tourist Attraction One Hour East of Me. Dogs not allowed.

[Peter Lemkin]

Restorers to bone up on skills for Kutná Hora ossuary makeover

20-03-2014 15:33 | Ian Willoughby

Containing thousands of human bones arranged in various shapes, including achandelier and coat of arms, an ossuary outside the Central Bohemian townof Kutná Hora is perhaps the Czech Republic's most ghoulish touristattraction. However, the "bone church" now faces extensive repair work raising worries over how to reassemble some formations afterwards.


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Photo: CTKEvery year the ossuary in the basement of a Roman Catholic church in Sedlecon the outskirts of Kutná Hora draws upwards of quarter of a milliontourists from around the world.
It is a macabre spot, housing the bones of an estimated 40,000 to 70,000people who died during the mid-14th century Black Death and the HussiteWars almost 100 years later.
The bones are arranged into all kinds of formations, from the crest of thelocal aristocratic rulers the Schwarzenbergs to the signature of woodcarverFrantišek Rint, who the family hired to create the eerie designs in the1870s.
Today the Sedlec "bone church" is suffering from structural faultsand, administrators say, requires extensive repairs. The first phase,focused on the roof and its frame, will get underway in July.
Photo: CTKA subsequent stage will be more complicated. The biggest structures in thebasement, four bell-shaped mounds of bones, have to be temporarily removedas they are adjacent to supporting columns in need of repair.
Sedlec parish representative Petr Blažek describes what will happen.
"We have to take those pyramids apart completely, one after the other,and to document, layer by layer, how the pyramids are composed. We willthen respectfully remove the bones and repair those spaces, safeguardingthe columns structurally, plastering the walls and implementing measuresagainst rising damp, and so on. Then we will return the bones, layer bylayer, to the form they are in today."
Unsurprisingly, there are concerns that reassembling the large mounds ofbones in their original shape could prove a huge challenge.
Photo: CTK"At this moment we actually don't know what is holding the bonestogether in those pyramids, if there is a supporting system holding themtogether we just don't know. So that makes it more complicated forus. We do have concerns. But we believe that it is necessary to undertakethese repairs. If we didn't, it wouldn't be long before nothingremained of this important historical landmark. It would fall into evergreater disrepair."
The good news for would-be visitors is that the Sedlec ossuary will remainopen when the repair work is going on in the next couple of years.