Ahh, The Sedlec Ossuary. I've been there! It's surprisingly small, but regardless, I filled all of my camera's memory cards. It's a very interesting place.
It's a Catholic thing. Not sure why, but there has always been a preoccupation with bones and death in the church for a long time, maybe back to the Catacombs. IIRC this is not the only ossuary in Europe, but it seems to be the largest one. I'll guess that the rest of the ossuaries are either owned by the Catholics or perhaps the Eastern Orthodox.
Well, one thing is that catholicism has traditionally been big in the cities, and churchyards in the cities were basically fixed size. If it's full, you need to excavate what's already there for the next burial -- but what are you gonna do with those bones? You can't just throw 'em in the trash. Nowadays, they mostly get reburied, AFAIK, more or less in mass graves, but back then, they ended up in ossuaries as being the most efficient place to store them. So tacks of skulls, stacks of femurs, etc.
Judaism apparently doesn't do that -- the Jewish graveyard in Prague is *literally* 6 or 8 meters higher than the streets around it from stacked burials, helped by a crowded ghetto and a very small graveyard site.
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Date: 2005-12-03 08:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-03 10:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-04 03:12 pm (UTC)Judaism apparently doesn't do that -- the Jewish graveyard in Prague is *literally* 6 or 8 meters higher than the streets around it from stacked burials, helped by a crowded ghetto and a very small graveyard site.