During World War II, Japanese naval forces in Okinawa, led by Rear Admiral Minoru Ota, built an elaborate underground headquarters, with hundreds of meters of connecting tunnels under a hill in... »

Memento Mori, Ossuaries, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries, Ghost Towns, Disaster Areas, Subterranean Sites | Edited by spinkk, Dylan and others

Like many ossuaries in Europe, the Cimitero Fontanelle began as an secondary burial ground when the church yards and crypts began to overflow. Unlike other ossuaries, the skulls of the anonymous... »

Ossuaries, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries, Curious Places of Worship, Subterranean Sites | Edited by Annetta

In 1916, this nine-month battle of Verdun claimed over 300,000 lives, and left about 300,000 more wounded. (By comparison, the total current death toll for American soldiers of both the Iraq and... »

Ossuaries | Edited by stanestane

In an area of less the 20 square kilometers, roughly an area the size of half of Manhattan over there were 700,000 casualties and some 230,000 men died, during the nearly year long battle of... »

Memento Mori, Ossuaries, Disaster Areas | Edited by

Before doing renovation or new construction in the 1600 year old town of Brno (officially settled in 1243 but occupied since the 400s), it is standard practice to do a preliminary archeological... »

Ossuaries, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries, Subterranean Sites | Edited by Dylan

In the Waldsassen Basillica in Waldsassen, Germany, the halls of the church are lined with an unusual sort of decoration. Known as the "Holy Bodies," they are the skeletons of Christian martyrs... »

Ossuaries | Edited by wythe

For the Bohemian queens and princess, it was a raw deal, for the other 15,000 skeletons in this crypt, it was an upgrade to nicer digs. The crypt under the St Peter and Paul’s church in M?lník... »

Ossuaries, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries | Edited by CPilgrim

With its big windows and light-filled sanctuary, the ossuary in Faro may be one of the cheeriest buildings made of human bones you'll encounter. The inscription over the door reads “Stop here and... »

Ossuaries, Curious Places of Worship | Edited by Annetta

The short version of the story goes a little something like this: Saint Ursula was a Roman-British Princess who, in the 300s, decided she would go on a pan-European pilgrimage. She packed a boat... »

Relics and Reliquaries, Ossuaries, Curious Places of Worship | Edited by michelle, majoun and others

In 1776, while America was declaring its independence from England, and bodies were piling up in the American revolutionary war, a priest and grave digger in the small Polish town of Czermna, (a... »

Ossuaries, Catacombs, Crypts, & Cemeteries, Curious Places of Worship | Edited by Dylan, pataszonek and others