culture

  • Skull Chapel or St. Bartholomew’s Church is a mass grave in Poland

    Skull Chapel or St. Bartholomew’s Church is a mass grave in Poland

    The Skull Chapel (Polish: Kaplica Czaszek) or St. Bartholomew’s Church, is an ossuary chapel located in the Czermna district of Kudowa-Zdrój, Poland. Built in Baroque style in the last quarter of the 18th century, the temple serves as a mass grave with thousands of skulls and skeletal remains adorning its interior walls as well as floor, ceiling and foundations. The Skull Chapel is the only such monument in Poland,

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  • Ossuary

    Ossuary

    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. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary (“os” is “bone” in Latin). The greatly

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  • Nasu aka Nasa (Zoroastrianism) and Tower of Silence

    Nasu aka Nasa (Zoroastrianism) and Tower of Silence

    Nasu (Also; Druj Nasu, Nasa, Nas, Nasuš) is the Avestan name of the female Zoroastrian demon (daeva) of corpse matter. She resides in the north (Vendidad. 7:2), where the Zoroastrian hell lies. Nasu takes the form of a fly, and is the manifestation of the decay and contamination of corpses (nasa) (Bundahishn. 28:29). When a death occurs, Nasu inhabits the

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  • Catacombs of San Gennaro in Naples, Italy

    Catacombs of San Gennaro in Naples, Italy

    The Catacombs of San Gennaro are underground paleo-Christian burial and worship sites in Naples, Italy, carved out of tuff, a porous stone. They are situated in the northern part of the city, on the slope leading up to Capodimonte [it], consisting of two levels, San Gennaro Superiore, and San Gennaro Inferiore. The catacombs lie under the Rione Sanità neighborhood of Naples, sometimes called the “Valley of the Dead”. The

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  • Fontanelle cemetery in Naples

    Fontanelle cemetery in Naples

    The Fontanelle cemetery in Naples is a charnel house, an ossuary, located in a cave in the tuff hillside in the Materdei section of the city. It is associated with a chapter in the folklore of the city. By the time the Spanish moved into the city in the early 16th century, there was already concern over where to locate cemeteries, and moves

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  • Saint-Lazare Prison was originally a leprosarium and then a prison and then a hospital now marked by the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul

    Saint-Lazare Prison was originally a leprosarium and then a prison and then a hospital now marked by the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul

    Saint-Lazare Prison was a prison in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, France. History Originally a leprosarium was founded on the road from Paris to Saint-Denis at the boundary of the marshy area of the former River Seine bank in the 12th century. It was ceded on 7 January 1632 to St. Vincent de Paul and the Congregation of the Mission he had founded. At this stage, it became a place

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  • The rich man and Lazarus aka the parable of Dives and Lazarus

    The rich man and Lazarus aka the parable of Dives and Lazarus

    The rich man and Lazarus (also called the parable of Dives and Lazarus) is a parable of Jesus from the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Speaking to his disciples and some Pharisees, Jesus tells of an unnamed rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. When both die, the rich man goes to Hell and implores Abraham to send Lazarus from his side in Heaven to warn the rich

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  • “Subterraneans” is a song by David Bowie

    “Subterraneans” is a song by David Bowie

    “Subterraneans” is a song by David Bowie, the closing track of his 1977 album Low. As with most of Side 2, “Subterraneans” is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song’s end. “Subterraneans” was first recorded in 1975 and intended for the soundtrack to the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth. It was later revisited

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  • Chthonic is a word related to all things underworld

    Chthonic is a word related to all things underworld

    The word chthonic, or chthonian, is derived from the Ancient Greek word χθών, “khthon”, meaning earth or soil. It translates more directly from χθόνιος or “in, under, or beneath the earth” which can be differentiated from Γῆ, or “ge”, which speaks to the living surface of land on the earth. In Greek, chthonic is a descriptive word for things relating to

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  • Plutus is an Ancient Greek comedy 388 BCE

    Plutus is an Ancient Greek comedy 388 BCE

    Plutus Written by Aristophanes Chorus Rustics Characters ChremylosCario(n)PlutusPeniaHermes Mute mutual Date premiered 388 BCE Original language Ancient Greek Genre Ancient Greek comedyPolitical satire Setting Classical Athens Plutus is an Ancient Greek comedy by the playwright Aristophanes, which was first produced in 388 BCE. A political satire on contemporary Athens, it features the personified god of wealth Plutus. Reflecting the development of Old Comedy towards

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