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No room
Too little ground meant bones were moved into an ossuary
The town sits on a narrow strip between steep hillsides and the lake. With so little space for cemeteries, every ten years bones used to be exhumed and moved into an ossuary to make room for new burials.
The skulls
More than 1,200 skulls are kept in St. Michael's Chapel
The ossuary in St. Michael's Chapel is a cultural monument with more than 1,200 human skulls, 600 of which are artistically painted with symbols, names and dates.
1,200or more human skulls, 600 of them painted
The names
Each decorated skull carries a name, a profession and a date
A collection of elaborately decorated skulls is on display at the local chapel. The tradition of painting skulls and preserving bones began because the village had limited burial space.
Charnel houses
Charnel houses are often built near churches to hold unearthed bones
A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. Where ground suitable for burial was scarce, remains were exhumed and moved to an ossuary, so the original burial place could be reused.
Day 1, afternoon
It comes after Hallstatt Market Square.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Hallstatt and the Wikipedia article Charnel house, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.