Fascinating bone chapels you can see in Europe -

Death is at the center of religion, art, literature, and much of what has moved us through history. Catholics have an intricate relationship with death and the afterlife, often placing emphasis on the human mortality. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe, monks and friars built bone chapels  to honor the dead and offer a place of prayer in which to meditate about the vanity of earthly life and their own transient nature. Here are some of the most eerie yet fascinating of them all.

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Capuchin Crypt, Czech Republic - Located on Kapucínské Square in Brno, the Capuchin monastery houses the naturally mummified bodies of dozens of Capuchin monks from over 300 years. The practice was ended in the the late 18th century for sanitary reasons.

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Capuchin Crypt, Czech Republic -

Mummification was never the intention of those who laid the bodies to rest. Capuchins monks often made vows of poverty and thus used the same coffin. After the funerary ritual, they would move the body into the crypt and mummification happened as a result.

To arrive in the main vault where the monks are located, visitors must walk down some pretty claustrophobic passageways adorned with stonework and the remains of dignitaries.

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Capuchin Crypt, Czech Republic - One particularly noteworthy skeleton along the passageways is that of a woman who is said to have been buried alive, which explains her stricken pose.

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Catacombe dei Cappuccini, Italy - Located in Palermo, Sicily, these catacombs serve as the final resting place of an impressive 8,000 Palermitans who died between the 17th and 19th centuries.

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Catacombe dei Cappuccini, Italy - The place arose out of necessity in the late 16th century when the adjourning cemetery ran out of space. This place is noteworthy because of the creative way in which the skeletons are arranged and also because of some impressively well-preserved mummies.

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Catacombe dei Cappuccini, Italy - One eerily well-preserved body is that of Rosalia Lombardo, a 2-year-old girl buried in 1920. Her body looks so lifelike, it appears she might wake up any second.

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Hallstatt Charnel House, Austria - Nestled in the hillside of a small mountain town, this "house of bones" is the perfect contrast to the cinematographically picturesque surrounding with its lavish forest and striking blue lake.

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Hallstatt Charnel House, Austria - Sitting in a small and cared-after cemetery near the 12th-century St. Micheal’s Chapel, the small building is packed with more than 1,200 skulls and bones.

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Hallstatt Charnel House, Austria - Because the cemetery was small, locals began to view the process of digging up old corpses to bury new ones as normal. So they made a ritual out of it.

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Hallstatt Charnel House, Austria - Around the 1720s, family members began to paint the skulls of their loved one with symbolic decorations and dates of birth and death before placing them in the building.

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Capela dos Ossos, Portugal - Portuguese for "Chapel of Bones," the name suggests exactly what you'll see: a chapel made entirely of bones.

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Capela dos Ossos, Portugal - Located in the Church of St. Francis in Évora, this chapel was built using 16th-century bones that were dug up to deal with overpopulation of the local cemeteries.

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Capela dos Ossos, Portugal - The chapel serves as a reminder of humans' own mortality as made clear by the sign at its entrance: "We, bones that lay here, for yours await," as freely translated from Portuguese.

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San Bernardino alle Ossa, Italy -

Adjacent to the San Bernardino alle Ossa church in Milan, the ossuary dates back to the early 1200s, when the bodies began to outnumber the church's cemetery.

The space compensates for its small size vertically. Its high ceilings allows for a splendid display of bones and skulls all along its walls, secured by a net.

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San Bernardino alle Ossa, Italy - Some say that the bone chapel in Évora was inspired by this one. The accounts contend that King John V of Portugal visited it in the mid 1700s, which left a lasting impression on the monarch who had one built in its image.

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Catacombs of Paris, France - Arguably the most well-known of all catacombs, the Parisian attraction contains at least six million bodies’ worth of bones.

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Catacombs of Paris, France - Tucked away in the tunnel network built to consolidate Paris's ancient stone mines, the empty spaces began to be used as ossuary in the 1700s, when overcrowding of cemeteries began to pose health concerns.

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Catacombs of Paris, France - Its existence remained tucked away and hidden until the 19th century, when it became a novelty for concerts and private events. Today, the place attracts about 300,000 visitors each year.

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Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic - Located right outside Kutná Hora, Sedlec is most famous for its "Bone Church," where bone art is king. From the chandeliers to chalices and candelabras, this church pays true homage to its dead.

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Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic - Sedlec is a popular place of burial among Czechs and natives of neighboring countries thanks to Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery, who returned from the Holy Land with earth from the site where Jesus was crucified.

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Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic - Henry, sent to the Holy Land by King Ottokar II of Bohemia in the late to mid 1200s, scattered the earth across the cemetery and that's how more than 40,000 bones ended up in this tiny town.

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Santa Maria della Concezione Crypts, Italy -

Located just under the church in Rome, the crypt, also known as Capuchin Crypt, serves as the final resting place of some 4,000 Capuchin friars. But they weren't originally here.  When the friars of the St. Bonaventure near the Trevi Fountain moved here in the 1630s, Cardinal Antonio Barberini ordered them to bring the remains of the friars along, so they would all be together. 

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Santa Maria della Concezione Crypts, Italy -

The friars decided to use the bones to decorate its walls in a living reminder of their mortality, as stated in a plaque: "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be."

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Wamba Ossuary, Spain - A small town in Valladolid, Wamba is best known for the Santa Maria Church, a Romanesque church that maintains some influence of its Visigoth and Mozarabic church past.

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Wamba Ossuary, Spain - Its ossuary contains thousands of skeletons deposited between the 13th and 17th centuries. Queen Urraca of Portugal—wife of King Ferdinand II of León and mother of King Alfonso IX of León—is buried at the church. 

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Wamba Ossuary, Spain -

As customary, the ossuary also includes a message reminding humans of their shared fate: "As you see, I saw myself as you see me, you see all ends here Think about it and you will not sin."

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