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Brno's haunting treasure chest of human remains

In June 2012, the city of Brno in the Czech Republic made an astounding revelation to its citizens. It opened to the public an ossuary that is thought to date back to the 1600s and 1700s. An ossuary is a depository for the bones of the dead in places where burial space is scarce.

The town of Brno is itself more than 1,600 years old. In 2001, during a routine archaeological dig in the city’s St Jacob’s Square as a prelude to structural renovations, workers discovered bones from about 50,000 skeletons. They had been dug up from old cemeteries and placed in neat rows in order to make room at the cemeteries. In the course of time, water had entered the ossuary and displaced the bones. The citizens were astonished to discover nearly 50,000 of their ancestors treasured beneath city. Ever since the discovery, the authorities have been working to preserve the 800-year-old ossuary. The size and extent of the Brno Ossuary is second only to the Catacombs in Paris.

The Ossuary is one of the three underground attractions in the city of Brno.