The Bone Church is a real thing. People simply don’t build things like this anymore - why do I feel that’s a real shame?
Looks innocuous enough huh? Wait until you get inside, because this church is made of bones.
Sedlec Ossuary–The Church Of Bones–lies in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutna Hora in the Czech Republic. Perhaps the main ‘attraction’ here is the huge chandelier which is built using at least one of every human bone:
Not content with that, they (or rather, a lonely woodcarver) then came up with a coat of arms for the Schwarzenberg family:
You can read about why and how here, but the question remains, how come we don’t make great things like this anymore? I guess we’re in different times. You’d certainly never get to build anything close to what we have in the Catacombs of Paris:
Seems to me that the longer the length of time you’ve been dead and rid of your skin, the more fair game you are to be constructed into something cool. You’ll be totally anonymous but still...
I fell down this rabbit hole when I started wondering what exactly where your options when your time is up–and there are more than you think but probably not as many as you’d hope for.
You can’t have a Viking style funeral in which your nearest and dearest strap your body to a raft and shoot flaming arrows at you. I find this disappointing but perhaps if they were allowed, having them everyday around were you live would become a bit of a grind. That the legal take on it anyway–if you were clever, I guess you could get away with it. It’s not like you’ll get into much trouble because you’re dead, so if you really fancy going out this way, you might want to make arrangements for all of your family members to have a really good alibi and pay some random strangers to take care of it for you–although ‘random strangers’ is probably quite brave of you once you’ve handed your money over.
Still, I find it quite an appealing way to go. If you were feeling really theatrical about your exit, you could arrange for your pockets to be stuffed with fireworks too and hope those random strangers were also a pretty good shot with those arrows.
However–there’s also a caveat if you look hard enough–it is possible to have a burial at sea if that’s the important part. It’s not cheap and you have to cough up for (wait for it…) a concrete coffin. There’s always somebody making money somewhere along the line huh.
I did also find a company that makes a Viking Longboat Urn, which apparently is legal to burn up out in the open. I guess it’s so small, it won’t burn for much more than twenty minutes and once it’s burnt out, whatever’s left will just sink to the bottom of the ocean/lake/garden pond. Brilliant.
Apparently, you can also be buried in your garden. I did not know this! If you own your property, there’s pretty much no problem, though I guess if whoever is left plans on moving when you’re gone, you might want to rethink that as it would have to be mentioned in the house sale details. Pesky legalities huh? Getting in the way of some harmless fun.
This means, you could be buried next to your dog, which is the most appealing reason of all. Luckily we’ve not had to broach this yet because Hector is alive and kicking and so am I… God knows, I can’t even plant a tree in the garden here because of the amount of chalk in the ground about eight inches down.
You can also be buried in the woods if you can find a woodland that will allow it. This is also so far up my street, it’s in my house. I like this one a lot. Some natural burial grounds will also allow the use of a cotton shroud instead of a coffin or casket. As usual though, you’ll have to cough up for a plot (£1000-£2500) but this feels more like what should be happening to you later on. Who knew there were so many options!
Not that I’m planning on going anywhere anytime soon but damn, that’s interesting.