Pěkný
22. 5. 2014 They finished the Brno ossuary
Categories: Finds and rescue research in the Czech Republic , Calendar
The ossuary is one of Brno's biggest tourist attractions. Seven years ago, a key exhibition dedicated to artefacts on the theme of burial in history was finally completed. The coffins that researchers found there three years earlier have returned to the underground.
Archaeologists discovered a total of 25 wooden coffins in the main crypt. However, they were not in good condition because of the dampness underground and the bones they were covered with. However, experts have managed to reconstruct some of the coffins.
The lid of the coffins of a 13-year-old girl and a 50-year-old man were returned to the ossuary. Then part of a child's coffin. However, it was not possible to determine from the DNA samples or other artefacts exactly who was buried in the coffins. The remains could belong to church dignitaries or important townspeople," said Aleš Svoboda, an expert on Brno's underground.
The restorers saved a total of four painted lids and one complete coffin. Brno paid CZK 1.5 million for their research and restoration. It cost the city 33 million crowns to build the ossuary as such and houses the remains of nearly 55,000 people.
The rare Renaissance coffins were found by archaeologists in 2011 when the ossuary under the Church of St. James was cleared out. Some of the coffins were not even attempted to be brought out. "For centuries, there were metres of bones lying on top of them. They crumbled under the pressure and now crumble at the slightest movement," Svoboda explained.
One of the coffins contained beads on a string. It had disintegrated, only "breathing" on it. The coffins that were saved have motifs of Christ and plants. The Brno ossuary is the second largest in Europe. It is surpassed only by the ossuary in Paris, where the catacombs hold the remains of six million dead.
The Brno ossuary was used to store the remains of disused graves and entire cemeteries. When it was full, the entrance staircase from the main nave of the church was closed with a stone slab with a Latin inscription. Then the ossuary was forgotten. It was discovered in 2001, when the redevelopment of St. James Square began. Several probes to a depth of four metres confirmed the existence of a large burial complex.
Sources: www.ct24.cz, www.denik.cz, https://ticbrno.cz/, www.muni.cz
The article is included in categories: