What is an ossuary and what is its purpose?

An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce.

Are ossuaries legal?

Unfortunately, modern-day ossuary interment is outside the realm of possibility for most people. You would have to process the body with natural burial or cremation and then recover the bones to place in the ossuary. And state and federal law pretty strictly prohibits that type of behavior.

What is the difference between a columbarium and ossuary?

A columbarium (the plural is columbaria), is a structure that houses urns holding cremated remains. In modern U.S. cemeteries and churches, an ossuary offers a permanent resting place for co-mingled cremated remains, often in an underground vault or chamber, with memorialization on a plaque above or nearby.

Why do ossuaries exist?

Ossuaries are common in Catholic countries, and in the medieval and early modern periods they were used to save space after a cemetery became full but several other religions also use them because of their spiritual beliefs.

Are charnel houses still used?

In 1925 a memorial charnel house was built in Bukovik, Serbia (now the town of Arandjelovac) to contain the remains of several thousand soldiers, both Serbian and Austro-Hungarian, who died in nearby battles during World War I. Charnel houses still exist in the twenty-first century.

What is the difference between an ossuary and a catacomb?

is that ossuary is a container, receptacle, or building, such as an urn or vault, for holding the bones of the dead while catacomb is an underground system of tunnels and chambers with recesses for graves, used (in former times) as a cemetery; a subterranean tunnel system used for burying the dead, as in paris or …

Why do Greeks dig up their dead?

According to tradition, widely accepted in Greece for the past 1,500 years, the human body is a temple of God; burying it intact after death is the ideal way to prepare it for the resurrection. Any meddling in the natural process of decay is condemned as a desecration of the temple, an offense against God.

What is a cremation ossuary?

Ossuary. We also offer an ossuary, an underground vessel that contains the collective cremated remains of loved ones. Made of granite, the ossuary stands as a respectful tribute to those who have passed away.

Are there any ossuaries in the US?

In North America, the ossuary form of burial is well known from the periods just before European colonization in the Chesapeake region and northwestern New York and adjacent Ontario. The Indian Neck ossuary is the best known and most completely reported in New England.

What is the purpose of a charnel house?

A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with death and destruction.