Reconstruction of skeletal pyramid at Czech 'Bone Church' begins

After three years of painstaking restoration work, experts have begun to re-assemble a medieval pyramid made out of human bones at the Sedlec Ossuary, a Czech chapel and popular tourist attraction in Kutná Hora decorated with the skeletons of an estimated 50,000+ people.

Restoration of the pyramid is part of long-term renovations at the location that began in 2014 and are expected to run through at least 2030. The pyramid, one of four at the location, needed to be completely disassembled due to damage at its location within the church.

After the structure was taken apart, thousands of individual skulls, bones, and bone fragments were brushed, dried, and treated with slaked lime to aid in preservation during the restoration process.

Now, the painstaking work of re-assembling the pyramid will begin. A new wooden framework will be put in place to help stabilize the pyramid, giving it slightly more height then before the restoration. Bone fragments that could not be salvaged were buried, but will not be replaced.

"D-Day for the Ossuary has arrived," Visit Sedlec writes on Facebook.

"With a solemn blessing and a speech, we started a new chapter of the Ossuary: the assembly of skeletal remains on a structure prepared for the first skeletal pyramid officially began yesterday!"

"From now on, you have a unique opportunity to watch restorer Tomáš Král and his team at work, [work] which no one has done before in history. Come to the spectacular event and be there with us!"

During the lengthy re-assembly process, which began on Friday, visitors will be able to watch restorers carefully re-construct the bone pyramid from behind a pane of glass. A completion date for the process is not yet known.

"It is very hard to estimate how long the assembling will take, it is a huge experiment," restorer Tomáš Král told local media.

There are a total of three other bone pyramids within the church, but it is unknown when restoration work will being on them. Due to a drop in visitors during the coronavirus pandemic, the church has less revenue than expected to carry out the necessary work.

Since 2014, renovations at Sedlec Ossuary have cost an estimated 85 million crowns. Restoration of the first of the bone pyramids alone has run approximately 20 million crowns. Due to the high costs, it is not yet known when the church will begin repairing the other three pyramids.

The bones within the pyramids, and others that decorate the church, largely come from victims of the Black Death, a 14th-century bubonic plague that killed an estimated 75-200 million people in Europe and Asia, as well as those killed in the 15th-century Hussite Wars.