TRAVEL. CULTURE.
Intimidated From Bones and Skulls
This is not a scene from a horror movie — it is a religious site
It sounds more like a haunted house than anything religious. Who would want to see their ancestor’s skulls when praying? I anyway don’t have anything to do with most religious traditions but this one really sounded odd to me.
“The Chapel of Bones” is located next to the church of St. Francis in the Portuguese city of Évora. The official name is “Capela dos Ossos” but its common name comes from the decoration of the interior walls.
It’s not any kind of decoration. It’s nothing but bones and skulls. Real bones from people who lived in the community. Human bones.
Capela dos Ossos was built by Franciscan monks and it is estimated they have used around 5,000 corpses to decorate the walls of the chapel. All those corpses were taken from the cemeteries of Évora.
