Turismo Portugal - CAPELA DOS OSSOS - Nós Ossos Que Aqui Estamos, Pelos Vossos Esperamos | Bem Giro

Turismo Portugal - CHAPEL OF BONES - We bones that are here await yours | Bem Giro Portugal

The Capela dos Ossos (English: Chapel of Bones) is one of the best known monuments in Évora, Portugal. It is a small interior chapel located next to the entrance of the Church of St. Francis. The Chapel gets its name because the interior walls are covered and decorated with human skulls and bones.

Among the sights open to visitors is the Capela dos Ossos Church in the Portuguese city of Evora, built entirely by a Franciscan monk. For the Capela dos Ossos, an estimated 5000 corpses were exhumed, and then used by the Franciscans to decorate the walls of the chapel. According to legend, these bones once belonged to soldiers who died at a major battle, or were the victims of a plague. In reality, however, the bones came from ordinary people who were buried in Évora’s medieval cemeteries. In any event, the Franciscans arranged the bones in a variety of patterns.

The chapel is formed by three spans 18.7 meters long and 11 meters wide. Light enters through three small openings on the left. Its walls and eight pillars are decorated in carefully arranged bones and skulls held together by cement. The ceiling is made of white painted brick and is painted with death motifs. The number of skeletons of friars was calculated to be about 5000, coming from the cemeteries that were situated inside several dozen churches. Some of these skulls have been scribbled with graffiti. Two desiccated corpses, one of which is a child, are in glass display cases. And at the roof of chapel, the phrase "Melior est die mortis die nativitatis (Better is the day of death than the day of birth)" (Ecclesiastes, 7, 1) from Vulgate is written.

POEM of Bones Chapel

Where are you going in such a hurry traveler?
Stop … do not proceed;
You have no greater concern,
Than this one: that on which you focus your sight.

Recall how many have passed from this world,
Reflect on your similar end,
There is good reason to reflect
If only all did the same.

Ponder, you so influenced by fate,
Among the many concerns of the world,
So little do you reflect on death;

If by chance you glance at this place,
Stop … for the sake of your journey,
The more you pause, the more you will progress.

by Fr. António da Ascenção (translation by Fr. Carlos A. Martins, CC)

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