The images are collated in a book called Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us

The macabre decorations may seem gruesome but they were 'created out of love'


A relic hunter dubbed 'Indiana Bones' has lifted the lid on the bizarre practice of using human skeletons as macabre decorations in religious vaults around the world.

Art historian Paul Koudounaris tracked down and photographed extravagant displays and memorials made from human remains dating back 400 years at dozens of religious establishments worldwide.

The grim memorials are now the subject of Mr Koudounaris' latest book, which sheds light on the forgotten relics for the first time.

Mr Koudounaris has spent ten years travelling the globe visiting charnel houses and ossuaries - vast vaults where the remains of the dead have been kept for hundreds of years - and documenting their extraordinary contents.

Art historian Paul Koudounaris dubbed 'Indiana Jones' has spent ten years tracking down and photographing extravagant displays and memorials made from human remains dating back 400 years

Koudounaris went to more than 250 sites in 40 separate countries including Bolivia, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mexico and Nepal to study how different cultures deal with, and honour, their dead

An enormous family coat of arms in the ossuary of Sedlec in the Czech Republic is one of the most impressive displays that the author came across

He went to more than 250 sites in 40 separate countries including Bolivia, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mexico and Nepal to study how different cultures deal with, and honour, their dead.

One of the most impressive ossuaries featured is Sedlec in the Czech Republic, inside which the skulls and bones from hundreds of human skeletons adorn the walls in morbid decoration.

The remains have been turned into stomach-churning chandeliers and even an enormous family coat of arms, while walls are made entirely from the bones themselves.

The elaborate design is the work of carpenter Frantisek Rint, who was employed by the aristocratic Schwarzenberg family in 1870 to decorate the chapel beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints with the bones of as many as 70,000 people.

When Rint was finished he left his signature on one of the walls using bones.

Other macabre sites featured in the book include the Paris Catacombs, which were built from bones in the early 1800s, at the order of then-emperor Napoleon.

His book covers several different traditions towards the dead, but the theme of them all is 'memento mori' - a reminder of death

Some remains have even been turned into stomach-churning chandeliers, as pictured above in the ossuary in Sedlec, Czech Republic

While the skeletal decorations may seem gruesome to us, they were and still are considered works of art in their own cultures

While we may not appreciate these spaces for the connection they give us with death, the author urges us to at least appreciate the images for their aesthetic qualities

The decorations within the temples are said to form 'magical spaces' allowing the living and the dead to interact

Though the ossuaries and charnel houses are filled with the remains of the dead they're not spaces of death, they're spaces of life

The remains of thousands of Parisians were moved from city cemeteries into old underground passageways, then arranged into decorative walls and memorials.

The book highlights the burial caves of Sulawesi in Indonesia where mummified bodies are dressed and put on display, and the trend in Bolivia for people to keep the decorated skulls of their loved ones in their homes.

It goes inside one of the most recent ossuaries, a large ossuary in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, built in 1988 in tribute to the casualties of dictator Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, and to Taiwan where the bodies of Buddhist monks are preserved and enshrined in temples.

Mr Koudounaris' spectacular book is called Memento Mori, which means 'remember to die' in Latin.

And while the skeletal decorations may seem gruesome to us, he says they were and still are considered works of art in their own cultures.

Mr Koudounaris, from Los Angeles, said: 'This book covers several different traditions towards the dead, but the theme of them all is 'memento mori' - a reminder of death.

'These ossuaries and charnel houses were designed to remind the living that death is omnipresent but they served as much more than that - they were magical spaces allowing the living and the dead to interact.

Although they are filled with the remains of the dead they're not spaces of death, they're spaces of life.

'It's shocking for you or I to see the skeletal remains of humans used in this way but that is to do with how our western culture has evolved.

'But if you look around the world there are numerous cultures where the living and the dead still interact, and that is what this book is all about.

'These spaces where the bones have been used so decoratively might seem macabre to us but they were created out of love.

The ossuaries and charnel houses featured in the book were designed to remind the living that death is omnipresent

'People went into these places as places of beauty, hope, love and connectivity - they didn't go in there for a fright, that's our modern interpretation of it.

'My task with this book was to re-contextualise these places not as ones that modern society should be ashamed of but as incredible works of art that should be celebrated.

'Even if we can't appreciate these spaces for the connection they give us with death, let's at least appreciate these spaces for their aesthetic qualities. That has been my ultimate goal.

'I'm very proud of this book - it's my final book on the subject after 10 years travelling and researching. My previous works have focussed on European sites but with this book I wanted to show these practises on a global scale.

'These spaces have never been presented in this way before, and with this book the pictures tell their own story.'

Koudounaris said his task was to re-contextualise the places featured not as ones that modern society should be ashamed of, but as incredible works of art that should be celebrated

The grim decorations are the subject of a new book by Koudounaris called Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us



