Sedlec Ossuary True Meaning: Memento Mori (Remember You Must Die)

By: Gracie Schutt

Bones and skulls are normally popular Halloween decorations, but at the Sedlec Ossuary, in Kutná Hora – a town about an hour from the city of Prague – bones and skulls are everywhere you look.

With walls lined up and down with bones, chandeliers crafted human skulls, and glass cases filled with wounded heads, the Sedlec Ossuary is a popular place among tourists.

The Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic Chapel, the oldest in Europe at 600-years-old, that was created with 40,000 human remains. It was inspired by Jerusalem design, with a high level of gothic style.

“It’s not a dark tourism spot at all, and we do not want to be perceived like that,” says Radka Krejčí, the director of the ossuary. She further explains that even though people might come because they assume it is dark tourism, she wants people to know that this is a sacred place and to respect the Christian values it has. It is still to this day used for Catholic mass and other ceremonies.

Many of the tourists have not gotten this message that this chapel is a spiritual place, not a place for pictures, creepiness, or publicity. One of the most popular questions Krejči gets is, “are the bones really real?”

“Wow, wow, it’s real, not fake,” said a German woman, who declined to give her name, visiting the chapel. At first glance the bones and skulls might give off an eerie ambiance, but the point is to “remember your death,” says the guided tour audio device.

Director Krejči wants to send the message “Memento Mori” that this holy chapel is a place to think about your life and death because the end will come soon enough. However, the few people that are not amused by the decor think differently.

Tourists Daniel Baratz and his wife, doctors from Argentina, were recommended to come see Seldec from their daughter who resides in Prague. “We try to defeat death… I think this kind of art is not nice” said Baratz. They view this place as inhumane, and said, “These are people, not lamps.”

The pillars of bones, pyramids of skulls, and hanging remains made a local Czech woman feel, “like death is inevitable.” Eva Hujerová decided to visit the chapel because she wanted to see the town of Kutna Hora and knew it was a famous spot. It was only a short train ride from her home. Hujerová said she understood the overwhelming sense of death in the building, which is how Kerjči wants people to feel. 

This is not the only bone-filled ossuary in the world, but it is the only one in Central Europe. Many of the tourists who attended this past Wednesday afternoon said they had never attended another temple like this one. There are other ossuaries located in Rome, Italy, Wamba, Spain, Hallstatt,  Austria, Evora, Portugal, and more.

Tereza from the Czech Republic, had been told stories about the Sedlec Ossuary and the bones as a child. “This is our first time here and we only visited it because I wanted to see the bones, to put it a little morbidly,” she says.

The spiritual and religious side may not be the first thought of most visitors, they are more fascinated by the immense amount of human remains. The doctors from Argentina, explained they are not usually fond of this kind of thing, but that they do find it interesting even if they do not agree with the usage of the bones.

Krejči says that summer is the busiest months and it is hard to keep the tourists under control and that they have decided to take away all photo opportunities, as some people have been very disrespectful and used this holy chapel as a place to “take stupid photos or selfies doing funny faces and so on” explained the director.

With so many tourists attending this church or ones similar for their own fulfillment of dark tourism, there is research being done on why they are so eager to come. People do not understand that the ossuary is not trying to promote this kind of tourism, but more to be a “place of hope and expectation” repeated the guided tour audio device.

The overwhelming amount of bones and skulls that completely cover the inside of the chapel might be morbid or creepy to some, and what Sedlec Ossuary is most famous for, but the heart of religion and history still runs deep. Because this temple is still a fully functioning place of worship, they do have places to light candles to represent God’s light and in remembrance for past loved ones.

Right now the message of the ossuary is not taken very seriously by most visitors, but the message “Memento Mori” (a Latin phrase meaning remember you must die, often used as a prompt to focus on what you want to do in your life) is still the foundation for Radka Krejči and the others who hold this temple near to their heart.