The Painted Skulls of Hallstatt
In a small chapel in an Austrian lakeside village, hundreds of human skulls are stacked on shelves, painted with flowers, crosses and names.
What was reported
Hallstatt is a village squeezed between a lake and steep mountains, with very little room for a cemetery. For centuries, after some years in the ground, bones were dug up to make space and placed in the Beinhaus, the 'bone house', in St Michael's Chapel.
The skulls were often painted by family members or the gravedigger with names, dates and decorations: wreaths of ivy and oak, roses and crosses. More than 1,200 skulls are kept there, around 600 of them painted.
Explanations offered
The custom began because of the lack of space and continued as a way to honour the dead. It largely stopped in the 20th century, when cremation became common, though a skull was added as late as 1995, at the wish of a woman who died years before.
- When
- Skulls painted from the 1700s
- Where
- Hallstatt, Upper Austria, Austria
- Witnesses
- Visitors to the chapel
- Status
- A real place
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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