Earth from Golgotha
A handful scattered in 1278 made this the most sought-after burial ground in central Europe.
H2k4 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jan Kameníček — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Perituss — CC0 · Gerd Eichmann — CC BY 4.0
A train from Prague main station to Kutná Hora hlavní nádraží in about an hour, with the ossuary a ten-minute walk from there — it is the closest station to the site. The old town and St Barbara's Cathedral are about three kilometres further, reached by local train or bus. A full day covers both comfortably.
That is a personal judgment. The place is not designed to frighten anyone, but it displays human remains directly and plainly, and some children find it upsetting or confusing. Older children who are given the context beforehand usually meet it with curiosity rather than fear.
The Gothic St Barbara's Cathedral, among the most important Gothic buildings in central Europe, built on the wealth of the silver mines that made Kutná Hora the second richest town in the Kingdom of Bohemia. With it, the UNESCO-listed Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec and the old town itself.
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A small chapel in the Sedlec suburb of Kutná Hora whose crypt holds the bones of an estimated forty thousand people, arranged as architectural decoration. The story begins in 1278, when the abbot of Sedlec returned from the Holy Land with a handful of earth from Golgotha and scattered it over the abbey cemetery. Word spread, and the cemetery became the most sought-after burial ground in central Europe, filling further with the Black Death in the fourteenth century and then the Hussite Wars. When the ground could hold no more, the bones were moved into the crypt. In 1870 the woodcarver František Rint was commissioned to arrange them, and he made from them a chandelier said to contain every bone in the human body, the Schwarzenberg family arms, pyramids, arches and his own signature in bone. This should be said plainly: these are the remains of real people, and the site is a burial place rather than an exhibition. Photography is restricted, and visitors are asked to keep quiet and dress respectfully. The place can be difficult for some visitors and for children.
A handful scattered in 1278 made this the most sought-after burial ground in central Europe.
Said to contain every bone in the human body.
The remains of real people — quiet and respectful dress are asked, and photography is restricted.
Sedlec, Kutná Hora, about seventy kilometres east of Prague