Built with bones

Though man started living in caves, they mastered the art of building structures using materials like earth, stones, bricks, iron and even glass.

But human bones and skulls have never been used for constructing any structures on the Earth except in Poland where a chapel has been made using such quaint materials.

Chapel Kaplica Czaszek in southwestern Poland, located in the old town of Czermna, has walls and ceilings made from human bones.

Originally, this macabre construction was intended to be a reminder of mortality and human salvation in the face of death.


The holy place offers its devotees such chilling display of thousands of human bones, ravaged by war and disease, are stacked on top of each to construct the building's walls and ceilings in a macabre pattern.


The skulls and leg bones of over 3,000 victims are meticulously arranged over the ceilings and walls, while over 21,000 additional remains are hidden behind a trap door in a crypt below the church, reports Daily Mail referring to design news site Beautiful Decay.

According to the description of the tabloid, the interior reveals a repetitive design of human bones laid out a thousand times as ‘a celebration of oneness.’

The mastermind behind this eccentric engineering craftsmanship was a local priest Vaclav Tomasek, who built the chapel's interior after visiting shallow grave sites commemorating the fallen soldiers and civilians killed in the Silesian Wars and the Thirty Years’ War as well as those devastated by plagues and cholera.

The Thirty Years' War, which took place in 1618–1648, was a series of wars fought mainly in Central Europe and one of the most destructive conflicts in European history.

It was followed by the Silesian Wars in 18th-century, which saw Austria and Prussia battle possession of Silesia, a historical region that is now in southwestern Poland.

After seeing the poignant reminder of those who had fallen, Mr Tomasek collected and cleaned skeletal remains, embedding them in the chapel walls between 1776 and 1804.

His intention was to keep reminder of mortality and human salvation in the face of death.

On the church’s altar, Mr Tomasek placed the bones of important figures as well as more unusual bones disfigured by disease to elevate those who suffered in death.

These included the skull of the local mayor, bullet-ridden skeletons, a skull deformed by syphilis and the bones of a rumoured giant.

The creator also embraced his creation eternally when Mr Tomasek’s own skull was placed at the altar when he passed away in 1804.