![]() The WWII air raid shelter underneath Špilberk Castle is now known as 10-Z Bunker. There are glass cases and thin railings shielding the bones but they’re well within reach and some people around me touch them surreptitiously. Two glass coffins contain the skeletons of a grown man and a 13-year-old. In the central chamber is a creepy chapel with a tall cross, pulpit and “walls” of bones in the far corner is a stained glass mural. Researchers spent a decade gathering the remains, and cleaning and rearranging them before the ossuary opened to public in 2012. ![]() In 2001, it was discovered as part of a land survey. Once full, the ossuary was covered and lay in oblivion for 200 years. The original crypt’s three sections filled up quickly and had to be expanded for victims of plague, cholera, the Thirty Years’ War, and the Swedish siege of Brno. James’ cemetery and along the passages are tombstones from the original graves. The crypt was built in the 17th century to accommodate remains from St. I refer to a pamphlet and several signs in Czech and English, but the sheer volume of the bones does most of the talking. The skulls stare at me, hollow-eyed.Īt the entrance is an exhibit of old photos of the church and cemetery. They’re made up of the skeletal remains of 50,000 people, tinted yellow due to lack of exposure to sunlight. ![]() Then, I take a closer look at the walls and the pillars of the main chamber and two side passages. Yet as I tour the 330-foot-long repository of bones beneath the Church of St. Brno, in the eastern historical region of Moravia, has the second-largest ossuary in Europe, after Paris.
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