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Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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Artist's Comments

This is the real thing. This is actual human sculls and bones.

This is shot in a church in a small town (Kutná Hora) outside of Prague. It's an ossuary and it's decorated with an amazing amount of human bones. The cemetery has been very popular (popular is probably the wrong word here) due to the fact that in the 13th century an abbot covered the cemetery with 'Holy Soil' from Jerusalem. During the plague sick people used to come here to die. In 1870 a woodcarver was hired to decorate the church with the remains of all these people. He had about 40 000 sets of bones to work with. Among the most impressive things he made is an enormous chandelier, a coat of arms, and two big (6ft) chalices. There are bones everywhere.

It's an amazing sight to see the interior of this church. This shot is such a small part of it all.

(It was pretty dark in the ossuary and I didn't have my tripod and I didn't want to use the flash so to get reasonable shutter speeds I had to use ISO 800 so it's pretty noisy.)

Comments


love 0 0 joy 0 0 wow 0 0 mad 0 0 sad 0 0 fear 0 0 neutral 0 0
:icontenderprey:
holy crap, this is hugely fantastic! great how you offset the skulls with empty space!

--
Good words, unlike money, are not subject to inflation.
:icontrishthepunkass:
Oh my gosh! This is horribly awesome!
:+fav:

:D :D :D
:iconlis-n:
impressive...lovely
:iconmr-pantz:
that is both awsome and favourited

--
avast :pirate:
:iconnothin-special:
this is fucking awsome....did you do anything to the background, cuz if not that makes it all the more better, but if you did you did a great job! :) :P :bye:

--
~"Stoners live, stoners die! Fuck the world lets go get high." -Eldridge

"and in the morning im making waffles"
--- Donkey offa sherk
"Im riding spinners"
---carl neely
:iconrunewitch:
i noticed that the skulls are all approximately the same size
does that carry through the whole structure of this piece?

--
To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice~Confucius

Creo ergo sum
:iconsilentdark:
when i first saw this i thought it was a render.


Awesome photo, and an interesting description, it'd be an awesome place to visit one day, though. :nod:
:iconkkart:
It seriously doesn't get much creepier than this....this is just fantastic in every way possible.

--
John, your deviantART Gallery Moderator of Photography>Animals, Plants & Nature
jdebordphoto.com my website

Details

June 10, 2004
352 KB
1067×800

Statistics

55
45 [who?]
1,322 (0 today)

Camera Data

Minolta Co., Ltd.
DiMAGE F200
10/900 second
F/4.5
8 mm
800
Jun 7, 2004, 12:11:50 PM

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