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The adorned remains of Saint Felix, once of the
parish of Tafers, Switzerland now on exhibit at the Museum of Art and History
in Fribourg.
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A remarkable amount of my life has revolved around
bones, both recent and fossil. I have
cleaned them, excavated them, scrambled across rocky landscapes under the
blazing desert sun looking for them, mused and mulled over them, measured them,
photographed them, x-rayed them, CT scanned them, preserved them, conserved
them, cursed them, praised them, read about them, written about them, molded
them, cast them, put them on exhibit, accumulated well in excess of 10,000
books, scientific papers, and pdfs about them, and discussed them with students
and colleagues across the globe. Many
people I know have done the same - it’s
par for the course for vertebrate paleontologists. Given that experience, one
might become jaded about bones, but that hasn’t happened to me yet. I still
find bones of great interest and am challenged by the story they tell us about
the evolution and biology of life on Earth.
However, I recently read two books that, in spite of
my many decades of working with vertebrate fossils, revealed to me a new and
wonderful story about bones, this time about the human skeleton. The
Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses and Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and
Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs are by Paul Koudounaris, who holds a PhD
in Art History from UCLA and so has a scholar’s interest and knowledge of his
subject matter. He visited over 70 sites on four continents while researching
these books. In addition to his keen intellect, Dr. Koudounaris possesses the all
too rare ability to write about technical subjects in an engaging, easy to
understand style that keeps the reader interested without sacrificing accuracy
or the deeper meaning of what he writes about.
On top of that, the books are lavishly illustrated with hundreds of spectacular
photographs that are even more riveting than the text. So when you finish these
books you not only come away with a skull crammed full of new details but you will
want to immediately turn back to the first page and start again. These are not books you only read once. You
will reread them and share them with friends and family, although how they will
react is another matter.
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Although this is known as The Chapel of Skulls in
Czermna, Poland, the ceiling is made of lashed together human thigh bones.
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I’ll just give the briefest outlines of what the
books are about and show a few images.
If you find this of any interest whatsoever, track down these volumes –
you will not be disappointed. Take the world tour via the printed page and
remember that a number of these sites are open to the public. Someday you might
be in the neighborhood and can pay a visit.
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The Chapel of Bones (and indeed it is), Parish
Church of Nossa Senhora da Expectacao, Campo Maior, Portugal.
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The
Empire of Death explores our changing familarity with
the skeletal remains of dead. In the not too distant past, interacting with the
bones of the dead was an important part of Christian spiritual life. Bones were amassed, sometimes in staggering
numbers.
The Paris Catacombs contain the remains of as many as 10,000,000 Parisians,
with vast walls piled up by type of bone, sometimes with skulls arranged to spell
out Latin phrases. In other cases, tens of thousands of bones literally line
the walls and hang from the ceilings of chapels. Full skeletons were dressed up in robes,
armor, vestments, and other clothing.
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Tomb of Enrique Torres Belon, Church of Sanitago
Apostol, Lima, Peru.
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These sites were seen as sacred and worshippers went
to them to solicit aid from the dead. Unlike
today, people were not repulsed by the dead but instead saw them as a source of
help and hope. As can be seen in the
photographs in The Empire of Death, a
number of these churches still have magnificent remains in-place.
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The remarkable 8 foot wide chandelier is made of human
skulls, limb bones, and pelves, All Saint’s Chapel, Sedlec, Czech Republic.
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Heavenly
Bodies traces the strange history of skeletons from the
Roman catacombs. During the battles of
the Protestant Reformation in 16th century northern Europe, many
Catholic churches were sacked and their religious reliquaries and holy objects wantonly
destroyed as non-Christian. As part of its counter reformation, the Catholic
church sought to re-establish itself in those areas and replace the holy
objects that had been lost. But where to
get so many saintly objects in such a short time? From the Roman catacombs of course, where
first century corpses were in abundance (although many of them were of pagans). With little or no information about the
bodies, church officials, including the Pope simply declared them saints, sometimes
en mass, gave them names, sold them to distant churches, and shipped them
off.
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The dressed and bejeweled skeleton of Saint Felix, Gars
am Inn, Germany.
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They were received with great fanfare and proudly
and prominently exhibited in churches. To
better honor these holy relics, nuns, at great expense, sewed clothing for the
corpses/skeletons and often festooned them with colored glass, gold, and
precious jewels.
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Saint Gratian in Waldassen, Germany dressed in
sumptuous Roman military attire.
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These “catacomb saints” remained powerful religious
emblems and objects of adoration in the churches until the late 18th
and early 19th century, when they began to be seen as too ghoulish
or idolatrous to remain there. Many were
destroyed or removed and put in storage. Some are still in public areas.
Regardless of your visceral reaction to the outlandishly
decorated skeletons, one cannot deny the beauty of the sewing and wirework, the
attention to detail, and the ornate jewelry worked into the clothing and
sometimes the bone itself.
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Fine eye, nose, and dental wirework on Saint
Benedictus, Hergiswil, Switzerland.
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Paul Koudounaris' personal website www.empiredelamort.com
is, as he states “an online resource for charnel houses and burial catacombs,
and a supplement to the book The Empire
of Death”. It contains spectacular
photos and information on even more sites than are in his books. It is well worth a visit.
PHOTO
SOURCES
Koudounaris 2011: The Chapel of Skulls, The Chapel of Bones, Tomb of Enrique Torres Belon, All Saint’s Chapel
Koudounaris 2013: Saint Felix (Tafers), Saint Felix, Gars
am Inn, Saint Gratia, Saint
Benedictus
SOURCES
Koudounaris, P. 2011. The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of
Ossuaries and Charnel Houses. Thames and Hudson Press. 224 pages
Koudounaris, P. 2011. Heavenly Bodies: Cult
Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs. Thames and Hudson Press. 192 pages
