The Skeleton Church

The Sedlec Ossuary ( Kostnice Sedlec) is a Roman Catholic Church in Sedlec, The Czech Republic, famous for its unusual, organic decorations.

Unlike other churches that like to use religious paintings and religious jewelery as decorations, this one uses between 40,000 and 70,000 human bone. Built especially as an ossuary in 1400, the macabre decorating started in 1870 when the Schwarzenberg family hired a woodcarver to arrange all the heaps of bones in order. You can see the result in the photos, but just so u know, there are 4 giant bell-shaped mounds in each corner of the chapel, an enormous chandelier which contains at least one of every bone in one’s body in the center of the chapel, and a signature of the artist, executed in bone, of course, and other “works of art”.

It is unknown if the cathedral needs mortgage bonds. They have so many bones in residence it seams like they could vouch for the cathedral.

Scarification Tattoos

In the process of scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin. There are many reasons why people may turn to scarification. Aesthetically, scarifications are usually more visible on darker skinned people than tattoos. Also, unlike tattoos, scarifications are a product of one's own body.

There are also religious and social reasons for scarification. According to some tribal belief in Africa, producing scars on newborn children helps preventing vision related illness. There may also be religious expressions used in the scarification process.

Scarification is not a precise art; there are many variables, such as skin type, depth of the cut, and how the wound is treated while healing, that make the outcome somewhat unpredictable.

The body creates the scar, not the artist; it is important to keep in mind that a method that works well on one person may not work so well on another. Also, the scars tend to spread a bit as they heal, so scarifications are usually relatively simple designs -- small details can easily get swallowed up in the healing process.