Why this church made of 40,000 human bones matters to history

The Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora, about an hour east of Prague, tucked into the rolling hills of the Czech countryside, looks like any other medieval chapel from the 14th century on the outside: Gothic architecture, weathered stone and a baffling stillness. But once you descend the narrow staircase beneath the main church, nothing you see there is ordinary.Inside is the ossuary, which houses over 40,000 human skeletons. Not relics behind glass, but real human bones. They are not dumped into piles, but carefully arranged into chandeliers, altars, coats of arms and decorative garlands.The skulls line the walls in neat pyramids. The centrepiece is a chandelier crafted entirely from skulls and at least one of every bone in the human body. Its skeletal arms reach upwards to cast light across the vault.